


Torn

by Gevauxie



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Adventure, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Cross-Posted on FanFiction.Net, F/M, M/M, Romance, Time Travel, tomione - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-02
Updated: 2021-02-28
Packaged: 2021-03-04 18:47:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 15
Words: 27,726
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25031167
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gevauxie/pseuds/Gevauxie
Summary: Hermione, rather than Ron, attempts to destroy the locket horcrux, but for some reason it throws her back in time instead. Confused and lost in a world that is not her own, Hermione battles through her final school year at Hogwarts in a way she never thought she would. And every night, the dreams are getting worse...
Relationships: Albus Dumbledore & Gellert Grindelwald, Albus Dumbledore/Gellert Grindelwald, Hermione Granger & Tom Riddle | Voldemort, Hermione Granger/Tom Riddle
Comments: 19
Kudos: 65
Collections: Tomione





	1. Prologue

Some things are instinctual.

"Hermione! Use the sword!"

Some things your body just knows how to do.

"Hermione! Hit it with the sword! Finish it off!"

Some things we don't even think about, we can't even think about, because our bodies don't give us the time – it just reacts.

"Come on Hermione! You can do it!"

Some things are unconscious, like breathing, like closing your eyes under water.

"Go for it, Hermione! Silence it once and for all!"

Some things…

"DO IT NOW!"

…are fate.

Hermione rushed at the small, inconsequential piece of jewellery laying open on a rock in front of her. She held the sword of Gryffindor high above her head and clumsily swung it down, as hard as she could force herself. It ricocheted off of the enamelled golden edges, and in the rebounding clang, Hermione realised she had missed. The whole world around her sucked itself away and faded to black.


	2. Falling

Attempting to smash the locket had done its damage. 

For the longest time, Hermione was falling. She was gone from the forest, the sword ripped from her fingers, and the sounds of shouting had faded into nothing. There was wild, whipping wind, tossing her down and down until her teeth gritted and her eyes screwed up under the pressure of being weightless. She felt like a stone that had been thrown down a well, rushing down faster and faster, waiting to hit the surface of the water.

Falling down and down... further and further... 

Her body was like sifting sand through an hourglass, cascading through the abyss without thought of an end. 

Flashes of bright, green light flew past her as she fell. She counted seconds and hours and days and years, all in the space of one breath. 

And then, in the blink of an eye, she stopped. She hit the ground with a dull thud.

The first thing she noticed was that it was cold, and dark. She could hear the sound of sea waves lapping against the shore somewhere to her right, and she could smell the salt in the air. It hung heavy in her nose. Faintly, in the distance, she heard a cawing gull in the sky and a short shout from a child on the beach. 

Hermione stood carefully, slipping slightly on some seaweed, and looked around. She was standing in the narrow entrance of a cave. She patted herself down: she had nothing on her but the clothes on her back, her wand in one pocket of her jeans and some loose change in the other. 

_ Where am I?  _ She wondered. 

She must have, on instinct, apparated away from something, but she couldn't remember  _ what _ . Had somebody been threatening her? Her mind felt foggy; her brain was a hazy mess of disjointed memories, as if she had just awoken from a long, deep sleep. After a minute of standing there, she came to the half-dazed conclusion that she had to find her way back to Harry and Ron, and the tent.

She climbed carefully to the edge of the cave to look out, only to get a blast of light rain in her face that pushed her back inside a little. She raised one arm above her to shield her eyes, and leaned out again to look for people. She saw a couple of young children approaching her from across the jagged rocks, clambering along recklessly, led by a determined dark-haired boy that took strides ahead as if he knew the path well. Hermione leaned out a bit farther to get a closer look. The small boy was only a few paces away when he abruptly stopped his climb and looked sharply up at her. 

His face had remained hard and impassive as the two other children caught up with him, and apparently took this chance to voice their complaints about the cold and the wet.

"How long... Tom, can we go back... Please, please, Tom..." Was all Hermione could catch over the noise of the wind. 

The dark-haired boy turned back to them, and as he did Hermione felt her navel flip. She gasped as she felt herself slipping away. 

In alarm she looked down at her stomach and saw nothing where the rest of her body should have been. With a strangled scream she was gone.

_ Falling... falling... _

Hermione hit the ground again. This time, she scrambled up straight away and yanked out her wand. 

Looking around her, she began to feel real fear. It was night and she was exposed as a breeze blew against her, causing her to shiver. She pulled the sleeves of her jumper down around her hands to keep in some warmth as she attempted to grasp her surroundings. In the orange glow of an overhead lamppost she could see that she was standing in the middle of a country lane: a few country cottages stood nestled either side of her, with jack-o-lanterns flickering away on their windowsills. It was too dark to see much further than that. She could have been anywhere. 

Without delay, Hermione marched up to the garden gate of the first house in front of her, yanked open the lid to their letter box and sifted through the post to find out the address. A glance at the heading of the first letter surprised her, for it was completely blank. In fact, all of the letters addressed to this house were blank. She frowned in confusion. She then tried opening the envelope but inside, too, the paper was blank. She looked up at the house curiously to find that neither the door nor the walls had any kind of numbering or marking to establish itself. 

She leaned back slightly and squinted next door – there was a small plate engraved with the number 16 on the gate that she could just see in the lamplight. She squinted the other way, and again, could see a number faintly engraved: the number 14. She turned to check the house directly opposite across the lane, and there it was: the number 15. 

_ That's strange _ , she thought. It was as if the house before her didn't exist in this street at all.

The sound of oncoming footsteps startled Hermione into dropping the envelopes and whipping around, wand held out. Somebody was approaching her in the dark - a pair who were cloaked and moving quickly; Hermione could see the looming figures heading straight towards her a few street lights down the road. One, the taller and swifter of the two, seemed to be almost dragging or shoving the other as they made their way towards her. 

Hermione immediately fell back as fast as she could into the shadows, following the wall clumsily with one hand, and hid herself behind a couple of wheelie bins the next house over. Her whole body began trembling in fear. The figures were charging ahead and showing no sign of slowing down.

They then stopped abruptly just yards away from her – she heard their shoes scuff as they came to a halt. Hermione gripped her knees tightly into her chest as she crouched there listening, barely daring to breathe. 

They were whispering something to one another but she was far enough away that it was indistinct. There was some rustling and a pained moan from one of them, and then in a clear voice the other simply said, "Do it. Show me." His cold, high-pitched voice was like ice.

A few moments, and then: "I am waiting, Pettigrew..."

Before she could stop herself, Hermione let out an audible gasp that gave her position away immediately.

"Master,  what was that ?" Came the weak, timid voice of Peter Pettigrew. 

Hermione heard careful, cautious footsteps approaching her... She squeezed her eyes tight shut and prayed... 

Then, like before, she felt her navel flip and once again she faded away.

_ Falling... falling... _

The third time Hermione hit the ground, the atmosphere seemed colder than the last two put together. 

She stood. Her cheeks were wet - she must have been crying. With a huff, she scrubbed the tears from her cheeks harshly and looked around her once again. 

She was standing in a very familiar bathroom with a large vaulted ceiling and beautiful ornate arches leading around the corner to a row of sinks. Hermione knew the sight very well, having spent a large quantity of her second year at school sitting right there, breaking the rules as a thirteen-year-old girl bent on impressing her friends might do. 

She glanced around with a sad longing.  _ Hogwarts _ . She missed the routine of it all - how easy and simple and comforting it all used to be to her. She had been on the road long enough to be sick of the constant fighting; she was tired of the endless running, or the struggle to find something to eat or the desperation of keeping warm – she was  _ so _ sick of it. 

The door burst open and Hermione jumped out of her reverie. Not wanting to be seen, she slipped into a cubicle and watched the newcomer through the crack between the toilet door and its frame. To her surprise it was a boy who had come in, dressed in his school robes. He had come in alone and immediately turned his back to her as he bent over one of the sinks. She could see his hands gripping the porcelain tightly. Perhaps she should ask for his help? Although it wouldn't be a good idea to come out during term time, or to be seen in school at all if she was still on the run with both her muggleborn status and association with Harry. 

She stayed quiet in her stall, watching the boy as he leant his forehead onto the corroded mirror in front of him. He seemed young, only about fourteen or fifteen, and Hermione wondered why he was in the girls' bathroom at all.

The noises didn't make sense at first, but after a few louder, more syllabic hisses she recognised the attempt at Parseltongue. The boy was clearly unsure with it as he kept coughing and hesitating as he went over the words. After a few minutes of stunted spitting and incoherent whispering, he hit the side of the sink with his palm and growled in frustration. 

_ Is he trying to get into the Chamber?  _

There wasn't anything there anymore she knew, but perhaps this student didn't. It was dangerous for him even to be trying to get into it. He ran one hand through his wavy dark hair and let out an impatient sigh.

Without warning, Hermione moved a little and her right foot slipped in some water on the floor. She fell awkwardly to her knees and let out a cry of pain as she jarred her wrists against the floor to catch her fall. She lifted her head back up to look through the crack again and saw the boy had whipped round to face the sound of her yell. His eyes were wide in panic. When his gaze fell on the cubicle Hermione was in, she began to fade away again. 

In the brief half-second that their eyes met – though she was sure that he couldn't see her clearly – she felt some spark of recognition alight inside of her. She suddenly knew what was happening and went to shout, but her navel flipped again and she felt her body draining away from that place like blood being washed away by the rain.

_ Falling... falling...  _

Hermione was lost like a bird in a howling tornado, and all conscious thought left her.

Her fall finally ended. Time settled itself around her. 

She now lay, unconscious and barely breathing, in 1944.


	3. The Oncoming Storm

Hermione took a long time coming round.

Bleary and aching, she finally opened her eyes to her new surroundings. They were strange… and she felt strange. Like she'd been flung off a hippogriff mid-flight and then subsequently run over by a bus. Twice.

As she struggled to her feet, Hermione tried to remember how she had come to be laying down.

"Harry?" She croaked. "Ron?"

Where was the tent? Had something happened? The last thing she remembered was picking up Gryffindor's sword... She'd been deep in the forest...

Hermione tried to look around her. When she turned her head, the world span, and bile rose to her throat.

She sat down again quickly, closing her eyes and pinching the bridge of her nose. Then, as slowly as she could manage, she looked up.

She was in the middle of the street, sitting stranded in an old-fashioned city suburb with tall Victorian houses lining the road either side of her. They each had those large, heavy front doors with overdone brass knockers and wrought-iron railings that ran the length of the terraces. The house in front of her was less impressive than the rest: a bare, grey courtyard in the front and grime climbing the walls around the front door, which in and of itself was looking a little worn in the paint. Shabby netting hung behind the windows. The place had the feel of having been built with good intentions but recent years had got run-down and slightly forgotten. There was a sign sitting above the front door - so this clearly wasn't a residential property - but it was too faded for Hermione to make out.

Hermione pulled herself up carefully, feeling her own weight as she dragged her limbs into a standing position. She had to blink a few times to clear her vision as the blood rushed to her head. Bizarrely, as she stood there, a vintage car came trundling down the road and the driver honked the horn at her as he passed.

She frowned after him as he disappeared around the corner.

_Where have I gone and apparated to?_ She thought.

She glanced up the street from end to end, but nothing around her gave away her exact location. It was too old, too… dated.

The more she looked around her the weirder she felt, and the hairs on her arms stood on end even though it was a warm day. She pulled out her wand, skin prickling with anticipation.

_Are those... gas lamps?_ She thought, squinting at the streetlights.

And they were - the kind that were lit by men on ladders as the sun went down each day.

Hermione wondered if she had ended up on a film set. But there weren't any cameras, any actors, any lighting equipment.

She gripped her wand tighter to fight the tremble that had started in her arm.

_Look at the houses_ , she thought, barely daring to turn her head. _Look at them properly..._

There were no door bells, no buzzers to flats. There were no tv aerials reaching up from the roofs of the houses, or trailing electricity wires darting in and out of the walls. There was a large, printed poster slapped onto the corner of an alleyway a few yards down that read in emblazoned letters: Leave This To Us Sonny: You Ought To Be Out Of London (Ministry of Health Evacuation Scheme). And there was an odd couple walking towards her with their heads sharply bent - in a dark green utility dress and a herringbone suit.

_No. Please, no._

Suddenly Hermione knew, deep down in her gut, where she was. When she was. It couldn't be possible and yet here it was confronting her: the past. The deep, dark, unimaginable past that could not and should not be touched or altered or tampered with. Hermione knew with absolute certainty how exceptionally wrong it was for her to be standing where she stood.

_This a joke, right?_ She thought. _This is a... this... When am I? The thirties? The forties?_

From some detached place in her mind, Hermione marvelled at her own reaction. She was standing stock still on the pavement, eyes glazed over and mouth slightly open, staring immovably at the scene in front of her. She was so still that it was probably scaring the few passers-by that happened to glance at her on their way down the street. Her shock had sent her into a strange and dizzy pause, as if by not moving she could somehow take the realisation back and be confused and innocently stranded again.

_I must be dreaming. This isn't possible, no one can travel this far back. It's not real..._

The loud creaking of a door knocked Hermione out of her freeze and into a full-on panic attack. She couldn't breathe and couldn't make herself take a breath. Her vision was blurring. Her hands were shaking, gripping her wand until the knuckles went white. Her heart was hammering so fast that she could feel the frenzied beats moving her chest. She grasped the nearest set of railings for support as her knees buckled beneath her and she fell down.

"Miss! Miss! Are you alright?" Long, gloved hands came out of nowhere and helped her to stand. She wobbled and clung onto the other woman for support. "You poor dear, you must come inside – this is my establishment, please come in and take a seat, have some water…"

Hermione was marched into the nearest building - the grubby one that she had woke up outside of. As they entered, Hermione got a look at the faded sign outside the door: "Wools' Orphanage - Care for Homeless Children".

Hermione's head pounded as she was half dragged inside, and then promptly steered to a small office overlooking the street. Without any ceremony she was plonked down on the sofa.

Hermione shook with every breath she drew in. She still had her wand blatantly out in her hand, too unsettled to attempt hiding it, but the other woman didn't seem to notice it anyway.

"Martha! MARTHA! Fetch me a pot of tea!"

"You what, Mrs Cole?" Came the distant shout of someone deeper inside the building.

"TEA! PUT SOME HONEY AND BRANDY IN IT!"

The woman then took off her gloves and sat down next to Hermione.

"Now then, I'm Mrs Cole and I'm the matron here, I'll get you calmed down and back on your feet so that-"

A low, sudden rumbling of thunder cut her off. It was so loud it shook the windowpane. In alarm, the woman glanced sideways out of the window.

"It must be right overhead," she mumbled. "Wasn't raining a second ago, though..."

Hermione turned in her seat to look out at the sudden storm that was lashing down outside. As she watched, the sound of thunder grew and grew into a roar, abruptly and out of nowhere. The pavement outside was dark and soaked within seconds.

There was something _off_ about it. Hermione leaned forwards to see out of the grubby window properly. Then she shifted herself onto her knees to reach the window handle, grabbed it tightly and wrenched the old thing open. She stuck her hand out to touch a few drops, and then realised exactly what was wrong, and pulled her hand straight back in as if burned.

The rain was backwards - it was going _up_.

Hermione stood, backing away from the window. There was magic going on here, magic that Hermione didn't understand. Its wrongness gave her goosebumps. She had the sudden to urge to get as far away from it as possible.

"Mrs Cole, was it?" She addressed the woman, who was squinting at her curiously. "Thank you for helping me out there, but now I really have to go."

"Go, dear? But you had a funny turn-"

"I feel much better now." Hermione was still backing away towards the door. She swallowed loudly. "I think you should keep everyone inside until the storm blows over."

At that point a young girl, presumably Martha, came running in with an empty tin kettle dangling from one hand.

"It's comin' down cats and bloody dogs out there! The laundry I 'ung this morning will be-" She stopped short when she reached the doorframe.

Hermione gave her a quick, polite smile, then pushed past her back into the corridor. She yanked open the front door without saying goodbye and ran out of the house into the crashing thunder and roaring wind. She ran into the middle of the street.

Approaching her from the end of the road was a huge, rolling storm cloud, dark and threatening. The drops of water seared her exposed hands and face like acid as they flew upwards towards the sky. The air was knocked from Hermione's lungs by the sheer force of the gale.

There she was, a young witch all alone, dwarfed by the colossal tempest coming towards her.

And the storm clouds were moving by themselves, roiling and undulating across the concrete. For a moment she just stood there, rooted to the spot. She watched in horror as they tumbled closer; she was a rabbit in the headlights.

She felt as if the stormcloud was _looking_ at her. It was clawing its way across the ground towards her in particular - she _knew_ it.

Instincts kicked in and Hermione ran. When she reached the end of the street, she turned on the spot and vanished.

The usual pull of apparition was interrupted – something grabbed her ankle and distracted her for a moment, threatening to splinch her if she didn't focus on where she was heading. Hermione looked down and saw a grey, grizzled hand clinging on to her. She kicked at it and focused as hard as she could on her destination.

Out if breath and clutching her side, Hermione managed to appear in one piece down a side street of Diagon Alley. She was a state: soaked to the skin and dirty, her hair bedraggled and sticking to her face. Though the day was bright with a warm breeze, she was shivering in her wet muggle clothes. She stuck her wand in her back pocket of her jeans, then pulled off her jumper and attempted to wring out some of the rain water. From a few yards away the sounds of the main shopping street drifted towards her: the soft hoot of owls, and friendly chatter; general hustle and bustle across the cobbles; the tinkling of shop doorbells as people went in and out.

"Damn," Hermione muttered, holding her jumper out. The magical rain had been so acidic it had singed holes in the light red wool.

Out of nowhere, a crack of lightning whipped down onto a building nearby, shattering roof tiles and making some of the shoppers scream in surprise. A deep rumble of thunder followed swiftly, and the rain - the stinging, upwards lashing rain - began again in earnest.

Hermione swore, threw her wet jumper aside and pelted it out of the side alley onto the main shopping street.

The wind picked up and another dark, thick storm cloud had appeared, again heading right towards where Hermione was standing.

Was it following her?

Not waiting to find out, Hermione started running again, dodging through the crowded market until she reached the steps of Gringotts. She turned and disapparated as fast as she could manage.

She appeared with a crack on a large green in a quiet, pretty village a little north of London.

She stood there for a moment, waiting tentatively for a storm to start up again. After a couple of minutes, nothing happened, and Hermione started off gingerly down the road.

She has come here on the off-chance. Hermione knew what she was going to find. She knew, but could not accept it. She just wanted to find some small piece of comfort, some reliability, something to tell her that her fears weren't true. Her walk turned into a jog, and then a sprint as she passed the church and came upon her childhood home.

She skidded to a stop just outside the garden gate. The building itself was the same, but it was wrong in so many ways – her mother's hanging baskets were gone from above the door, the porcelain garden gnome they had christened 'Gareth' was missing from the small front lawn, and the front door was the wrong colour.

Hermione stared at it desperately. Why was it green? _Green?_ It had been blue for as long as she could remember. An unchanging, unrelenting, _insistent_ navy blue.

Hermione wandered away with her stomach feeling as though it were made of lead and sinking through the floor. She had no idea what she was supposed to do. If she was indeed in the past, was she altering things just by walking down this road? She'd used a time-turner before, but this was different. This was _years_ \- who knew how many. Was she changing the course of the future just by going past this post office, or this tearoom, or that schoolboy meandering towards her on his bicycle?

She knew the most vital rule of time travel: "You must not be seen." Did the same rules apply in this situation? She wasn't playing around with an over-stuffed school timetable and too much homework anymore.

Hermione breathed in deeply. She needed to calm down and she needed a plan. She couldn't roam around in some god forsaken year for long without any idea what she was doing.

_Who can help me? The Ministry of Magic?_

Hermione bit her lip. She needed someone she could trust. Someone she could confide in. If only she knew someone back-

_I do know someone here._ She thought. _I do know someone in this time._

In fact, depending on what year it was…

Hermione halted abruptly in the middle of the street and immediately turned back around. She rushed back to the post office she had passed earlier and ran inside.

The village post office was small with a long wooden counter and plenty of pigeon holes stuffed with envelopes lining the wall behind it. A couple of smartly-dressed women with short pin-curled hair were standing behind it, leisurely chatting to one another as no customers were currently inside. They looked around at Hermione's entrance and smiled politely with their rouge lipstick lips.

"Good morning honey, how can I assist you?" Chimed one, the brunette. Her colleague shuffled a bunch of papers into her hands and wandered out the back. Hermione ran a hand through her limp, wet hair and smiled politely.

"Yes, hello, I was wondering – what year is it?"

Hermione watched the girl's eyebrows raise in slight surprise.

"I beg your pardon, Ma'am?"

"Sorry," Hermione flustered, her cheeks reddening. "I know it seems like a silly question. But what year is it?"

"It's... 1944, Ma'am."

"Great," Hermione said weakly. Suspecting it was one thing, hearing it was another. "And... sorry to ask, but... what day and month is it?"

The girl frowned and pursed her lips. "It's the 29th August, 1944." She paused, then: "Are you feeling quite well?"

"Oh yeah," Hermione whispered, her voice barely able to leave her lungs. "I'm great."

Without another word Hermione turned around and left. Outside, she leaned against the wall for support.

_This is it, then._ She thought. _I'm not in Kansas anymore._

She took a moment to compose herself, closing her eyes and breathing deeply, before setting off back down the street. A plan was already forming and fluctuating in her mind – she wasn't more than a few steps out onto the empty village green before she turned on her heel and was gone.

Hermione wasn't in her new location for more than a few seconds before she heard the rumbling of thunder come from overhead. This time, it was everywhere: it was above her, behind her, growing fatter and darker as it came. As it grew closer she realised it was no mere cloud at all, but a mass of jumbled humanoid creatures, all climbing and clambering over each other in desperation to surge forward. They were grey and translucent like ghosts, and it was only the sheer number of them densely packed together that gave them any visible form at all.

Their faces were melted and deformed; their sunken eye sockets held small lights that stared into Hermione's soul.

The storm _was_ looking at her. And it was hungry.

Hermione broke into a sprint. The wind whipped into her face and the rain flew upwards and into her eyes. She ran hard, not relenting out of sheer fear as the howls of the creatures grew closer and closer to her heels.

She bounded round a corner and onto Hogsmeade high street. Other wizards who were out on what had been a sunny afternoon raised their eyes to the sky and squinted in confusion at the sudden turn of weather.

"Run! Run!" Hermione yelled, careering into the crowd. The creatures were not far behind her, and when they screeched around the corner, people started panicking. Some drew their wands immediately and began firing spells, others simply dropped their belongings and fled into nearby shops and houses. The creatures were now a swarm and any magic being thrown at them was quickly being lost into their thick, grey mass. Louder than ever they tore up the windy lane, and any men or women who were in their path seemed to crumple like paper.

Hermione chanced a look behind her, and in doing so managed to run straight into someone, and knocked both them and herself to the ground. She was winded from the fall and looked up dizzily. A small group of wizards had just exited The Three Broomsticks to see what the commotion was about and Hermione had barrelled right into them.

The wizard she had taken down was already getting back on his feet, his emerald cloak billowing in the unnatural squall. As the cloud of screaming creatures fell upon them he span his wand in a large, elegant arc, and from its tip came a blinding stream of white light. He aimed it at the mass, and within seconds his wandlight ate away at their form, and they spiralled away into the ether. The wind, the rain, and the noise died down.

The wizard broke off his spell and turned, panting, to the rest of his group. Although he was much younger, Hermione recognised him immediately.

"Ghasts! A whole horde of them! Who brought ghasts here?" Dumbledore exclaimed, the raindrops in his auburn hair and beard now glinting in the restored sunlight. The group surrounding him started muttering angrily in response.

"Blimey, Albus, I've never seen anything like it -"

"- In such numbers! Who could have conjured such a swarm -"

"- Disgusting, bringing dark magic like that onto a populated street -"

Hermione slowly, weakly, stood up. Her hair was dishevelled, and she was dripping head to toe from the rain and her own sweat. The muttering dropped off as the group turned to peer at her.

"Professor Dumbledore, my name is Hermione Granger, and I desperately need your help."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading the WIP so far! I will be updating very shortly.


	4. Welcome to Hogwarts

“What was your name again, Miss…?”

“Hermione Granger.”

“Ah.” 

After some explaining and proving that she was indeed from the future and not insane, Dumbledore had shown her up to the headmaster’s office and the two men were now figuring out how best to handle things. Hermione was getting impatient with their lack of answers. 

“Sir, I’m sorry to push you as I know my situation is…unique, but if you don’t understand how I got this far back and have no idea how I can reverse the time travel, what shall I do in the meantime? Can anybody at the Ministry help with this – should I go there?”

Dumbledore turned to look at her with a frown. 

“Miss Granger, while this is a completely unprecedented situation, you must understand that it is also a delicate one. You should not be speaking to anyone. You should not be seen by anyone. We should not even be having this conversation. I should be down in the grounds going for a nice stroll, as I planned. Your presence here is wrong, and everything is changing around you. The cat is out of the bag, so to speak. Therefore… no, I don’t think it best you go to the Ministry. We should keep this contained to this one area.” He took a step towards her, making her shrink back into the wall. “Who knows how much damage you have already caused before you got here?” 

Hermione, above all, was taken aback by his bluntness. The old, kindly wizard she had known since she was eleven was a far cry from this man, with his dark auburn hair and fiery glances. 

“You look young enough that you shall remain here at the school, with a fabricated story, until I speak to some contacts that I know who may have some ideas as to how you travelled so far in the first place.”  
"You want me to stay here?" Hermione asked, stunned.  
"Yes, Miss Granger, and integrate into the school system until we know more. As I said, I have associates that I can owl about this-"  
"But... Professor! The amount of people that I will have direct contact with..."  
Dippet waved a hand dismissively. "One student is much the same as another. Keep yourself to yourself and you'll be fine."  
Hermione acquiesced to the elder wizards’ better judgement, and contented herself to wandering around the headmaster’s room whilst the two men murmured to each other in the corner. She heard the odd word and phrase from them: "the greater threat" and "ridiculous" and "just how will that help, Albus?". She wondered why they were so against the Ministry, and keen to keep her in the castle.  
The headmaster's office itself was beautifully decorated. Having no opportunity to visit before now, she poked around curiously. The walls were a deep blue with gold leaf detail, lined with shelves hosting a wide array of curiosities, from taxidermied nifflers to busts of Merlin. Books were stuffed in every nook and cranny she could see. The many portraits of headmasters and headmistresses past peered down at her as she looked around. She wondered if the office was always kept the same way, or if each headmaster added his own personality to the room. She was at a glass case pondering some shrunken heads and a rather tatty old book on South American warlock rituals when the conversation in the room caught her attention again. 

"...better to use the hat, Armando."  
Before the headmaster could reply, Hermione whipped her head round and cut in. "What? The sorting hat?"  
"Indeed.” Dumbledore stretched up to the top of a bookshelf and lifted the musty garment from its place. Shaking out a year’s dust, he turned back to Hermione. “The school's sorting hat will dictate into which house you will go. We don't want you going through your seventh year with us in the wrong place."  
"I'm a Gryffindor," said Hermione immediately, unwilling to take the chance of going anywhere else. She remembered how long it had taken the hat to deliberate with her the first time around. "I mean I was a Gryffindor before, Sir."  
"Best to go through this whole procedure as thoroughly as possible. It will add authenticity to your cover story. Put this on, Miss Granger."  
"I don’t think there’s any need to-"  
Dumbledore advanced on her swiftly and with both hands placed the hat gently on Hermione's head. She shuffled uncomfortably but had no more protests. Dumbledore and Dippet folded their hands over their bellies, stood back, and surveyed her patiently. Hermione felt the old thing wriggling around and pursed her lips in irritation. This seemed like a childish solution to her problem – if she wasn’t meant to be in contact with anyone from the past, how would mingling in Hogwarts with the students help?

After a while Dippet checked his brass pocket watch and tutted. "My, my, this one is taking an age. I hadn't expected a hatstall when I agreed to this, Dumbledore. I have other appointments this afternoon you know."  
He was right, Hermione thought. Why was it deliberating so long? The hat had done nothing but mutter incoherently for nearly 6 minutes. Hermione rolled her eyes and crossed her arms, her impatience getting the better of her.  
Finally the hat exclaimed, too loudly for the small and circular room, "It's got to be... Slytherin!" Hermione did a double take – that was the last thing she was expecting to come out of the hat. Dumbledore looked down at Hermione with an expression of something like disappointment, but when she blinked it was gone. He promptly took the hat from her head and restored it to its resting place back up on the bookshelf.  
“Marvellous! I’m sure Miss Granger will fit in with her new Slytherin family just swimmingly. We'll find you some spare school robes from lost and found until we can purchase new ones that will fit you. We can't really have you running around like that." He indicated Hermione's outfit. She glanced down sheepishly at her dirty bootcut jeans, scuffed trainers and 'The Weird Sisters Rule' t-shirt. No, she supposed she couldn't go running around like this.  
"I can show her the way down to her dormitory now,” Dumbledore was saying to the headmaster. “And then I will immediately send an owl to a few – ah… friends – who will hopefully be able to shed some light on this issue, or at least offer some suggestions as to how to correct it.”  
Still in a daze, Hermione followed after the professor as he led her out of the room. They pattered down the steps and past the stone gargoyle. Only when they had passed through the entrance hall and were heading down towards the dungeons, Dumbledore spoke.  
"I understand this must be disorientating for you, Miss Granger. You must be feeling quite confused and perhaps also a little frightened – you don't seem it, but you surely must feel it."  
Hermione looked up at the professor as they walked side by side through the empty school.  
"I'm doing okay now, actually." She raised her chin a little higher. "I have a lot of questions, but I'm doing okay."  
"Naturally, a true Gryffindor spirit! Curious that the hat would sort you differently this time around," Dumbledore mused, peering a sideways glance at Hermione from behind his half-moon spectacles. "Hmm, very odd. Although I can't say I've ever known anybody to be sorted twice. What year did you say you had come from?"  
"1997, sir."  
"A remarkable jump. And you didn't re-appear in the same place either? It sounds like a mystery that needs unravelling."  
"Yes Professor, and I need it unravelled very quickly. Oh, thank you," Hermione passed through the door Dumbledore was holding open for her. "...Very quickly, because I have to get back to my friends as soon as possible."  
"Oh, yes, we all do miss our companions when we are separated from them, don't we? You must make yourself content for now though, while I look into solutions." His disregard for any sense of urgency nettled Hermione. His tone was like being patted on the head and told to behave while the grown-ups were busy.  
"Professor, I need to be helping as well. It is vital I get back to my time as soon as we can manage. There are things going on there that I need to help with. Things that really… honestly, urgently… need sorting out. I can't hang around here without being of any use, I have to-"  
Dumbledore had came to an abrupt stop in the middle of the corridor.  
"And what is it that you so desperately need to get back to? What could possibly be so important to a young girl of your age?" His astonishingly piercing blue eyes bore into Hermione's, and she couldn't keep up the gaze. He was questioning her about the future, and it made her nervous.  
"You know... Things," she mumbled.  
"Fizzing Whizzbee."  
Hermione's eyes shot back up to Dumbledore.  
"I'm sorry, sir?"  
"That's the password at the moment for your temporary home, my dear. Please go in and make yourself comfortable – I will ensure that the house elves bring you any personal items you may be missing and any other amenities you may require. I don't think it would be wise for you to wander anywhere else right now. Join me in the Great Hall around 5 o’clock… We will get you acquainted before the real ruckus descends." He held out a long, pale hand to show Hermione the door that she had completely missed a minute ago. Cautiously, she pressed against it and walked into the large underground common room.  
Her first impression was that it was very beautiful. It was imposing, and elaborate, but beautiful. She had always imagined the Slytherins lurking about in some gloomy dungeon, but the hanging green lamps twinkled brightly as she passed beneath them, and a warm fire sprang up in the grate to welcome her in. She nearly died of shock as the giant squid swam lazily past the window that looked out under the lake. It raised a tentacle at her in greeting before disappearing into the depths of the water.  
Hermione sat tentatively on one of the low-backed sofas, unsure what to do with herself. Straight ahead of her on the wall hung a magnificent tapestry depicting what she assumed were some medieval Slytherins feasting at a long wooden table. The sight of food – even artistically woven food – reminded her stomach that it had been a long day. It growled at her, restless. Spying a fruit bowl over on the mantlepiece, Hermione leapt up to go grab an apple. One bite into it and she realised it was a fake.  
“For goodness’ sake, is everything this lot do for show? Ugh.” She spat it out, annoyed. She missed the Gryffindor common room and again wondered at Dumbledore’s motives for keeping everything ‘authentic’. She hoped he would be able to return her as soon as possible.  
Hermione whiled away the rest of the afternoon in a similar fashion, looking around the common room, finding her new bed, perusing the book collection on the far wall. She came away from the bookshelves quite disappointed – how many copies of “On Pure-Blood Histories” and “How To Train Your Lazy House-Elf” did they need? At long last the grandfather clock near the door chimed for 5 o’clock, and Hermione made her way upstairs to dinner.  
Surprisingly, the hall had quite a few inhabitants that evening, even though term hadn't yet begun. Instead of four house tables there was just the one, and the half-dozen teachers seated at it were in a loose group at the far end, clattering their plates and talking amongst one another jovially. A few looked up when Hermione entered and shot her quizzical looks.  
"Hello? Why is there a student here already?" A tall, stern woman piped up. Her harsh black bun was drawn so tightly that the rest of her face struggled to move as she spoke. Hermione, embarrassed, made no attempt to introduce herself and remained standing in front of the doors helplessly. Headmaster Dippet rescued her from this awkward arrival, clapping his hands together and standing to greet her with a smile.  
"Little Miss Granger! We're glad you could join us this fine evening! Come now, sit, sit." He gestured to a spare space on one of the benches. Hermione obediently trotted over.  
"Fellows, this is Miss Granger – a new student of ours – here through exceptionally dire circumstances. Please welcome her a little earlier than the usual crowd."  
A few quiet ‘hello’s and ‘welcome’s followed his words. Hermione smiled politely and took a seat in between the stern woman and a man with a rather impressive moustache. Dippet began his cheerful walk around the table, introducing teachers to her, their names and faces swimming in and out of view as she tried to remember each in turn. Being the sudden centre of attention was giving her a headache.  
"...And this is Professor Beery, our regular raconteur here at Hogwarts, a purveyor of the dramatic arts, so to speak." Dippet gripped the professor's shoulders firmly. Beery tittered beneath him, abashed.  
"Oh you are too complimentary, Headmaster! I merely follow where the muse takes me!"  
Hermione nodded and picked up a fork. She absently pushed some cauliflower cheese around her plate, looking around the table for Dumbledore. She really needed to speak to him properly. And privately. He was too far away to say anything to him quietly, and he was preoccupied regardless. Professor Merrythought leaned forwards across the table, her large bosom getting dangerously close to the minestrone soup. "Have you heard anything further on the war in Europe, Albus? With your friendship with the Minister I'd assume you'd be first to know of any news?"  
Dumbledore looked very uncomfortable. "...No, Galatea, I haven't heard anything from Leonard in a while." He kept his eyes firmly on the bread roll he was buttering as he spoke. "We can, however, assume no news is good news at this point."  
"Mmm, true," said Merrythought, a little disappointed. "I suppose if another mass killing had taken place it would be in the Daily Prophet immediately."  
There was an awkward silence following her words.  
“Well I, for one, don’t believe in all this ‘For The Greater Good’ nonsense. Muggles are just muggles in my book, not worth paying any mind,” piped up the stern woman next to Hermione.  
“Speak for yourself, Virginia. Grindlewald is gaining a lot of traction in western Albania these past few months,” replied Professor Merrythought. The conversation continued in this vein for a while – Hermione tried to her best to eat quietly and listen attentively. Learning about the Wizarding War in 5th year history of magic was one thing, sitting through a current affairs debate on it was another.  
Just as dinner magically disappeared and dessert was served, the great hall doors opened with a crash. Professor Slughorn came stumbling in, wrestling with an umbrella that was stuck inside out. His coat was soaked through. Hermione glanced up at the windows – she hadn’t realised it was raining. Summer was definitely coming to an end. She shuddered at the idea of having to meet with an entire student body tomorrow evening, many of whom would want more of an explanation of her arrival than “exceptionally dire circumstances”.  
“Sorry! Sorry I’m late, chaps! Got caught in a bit of a jam on the A1 near York! That’s the last time I use one of those Muggle automobiles to…” Slughorn caught sight of Hermione, sitting innocently behind a black forest gateau. “Goodness gracious, these new teachers are getting younger every year.”  
Dippet stood up and cleared his throat. “Welcome back, Horace. This here is Miss Hermione Granger, a new student joining us for her final year. Please excuse her earliness… Why don’t you come and relax with us? You haven’t missed pudding.”  
“Mmm,” Slughorn replied, eyeing Hermione with interest. “Pudding does sound good. Is there an elf round here to take my coat?” He snapped his fingers and a house elf appeared to take his belongings. Hermione pursed her lips in disapproval but didn’t say anything. This was the last place she wanted to get into an argument. She spotted a promising slice of bakewell tart a few plates down that she thought she might leave outside the kitchens for them later.  
“Well then, Miss Granger!” Slughorn exclaimed as he plonked himself down onto a bench and poured himself a generous glass of red wine. “What brings you to our homely castle for your final NEWTS year, then? Any good at Potions?”  
“My… my family were…” Hermione struggled to remember the details of the cover story Dumbledore and Dippet had fabricated for her. She had never been a particularly good liar. “My family were killed by the smallpox Sir, so I had to transfer to Hogwarts.”  
“Got caught fighting for the wrong side of Grindelwald’s blasted war, did they?”He slurped down his wine. Hermione was reminded how much she had disliked him as a teacher last year.  
“They weren’t fighting at all, they were muggles,” she said.  
“Shame.”  
“Excuse me?” Hermione felt intense resentment overwhelming her.  
“I said it’s a shame that your parents were mug-”  
“That’s quite enough, Horace,” Dumbledore interrupted, standing up. “Poor Miss Granger has had a long journey to us today, and no doubt could do with a good night’s rest. Please let her excuse herself and head back to her dormitory.”  
Hermione took the cue to leave gratefully. She had to stop herself from breaking into a run as she left the hall, the eyes of every school teacher on her back as she went. She picked up the pace until she was back in the common room. She sank down on a sofa and sighed with relief to be completely alone.  
There was part of her that liked the idea of where she was; it was appealing to be somewhere new and fresh, where nobody knew her name or her past, and there was no omnipresent evil to battle against. The past few months of her life had been exhausting, one problem after another to overcome, with no sight of an end. Maybe she should just... not try so hard to get home. Start over here and live out her life in peace.

Except of course she couldn't, and Hermione knew herself well enough to be certain that she couldn't leave her friends and her world to an unknown fate and do nothing about it. Regardless of the repercussions she faced of ruining her timeline, she had to get back to help her friends and be by their sides. She missed them. 

A wave of longing came over her as the faces of Ron and Harry came into her head. She wished she had Ron's hand to hold, or Harry's shoulder to lean against. They were her very best confidants, her comrades, her boys. They were family to her, and she realised now just how much she missed the comfort of their familiar presence. What was the point of this school, she thought, without having them here to share it with?  
She worried about how they were getting on since she had disappeared. Were they looking for her? Were they safe?

She rubbed her eyes tiredly and sighed. She was spent for the day and needed a long rest in a soft bed. Hermione looked up at the clock and was startled to see that it was almost midnight, the fire now in embers and the lake looking gloomy and cold. It had gotten late while she had been sitting there, just thinking. She stretched sleepily and took herself slowly to the girls’ dormitory and to bed.

Her dreams that night were vivid.


	5. The Awakening

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hermione has her first dream of the future

_In the depths of the darkest forest, Hermione found herself standing alone, cold and wandless._

_There was a swirling white mist all around her, thinner than a fog but still impossibly obscure. Hermione blinked twice, then again, trying to clear her vision in the pale, bleak landscape. She thought she could hear distant voices... and yet…_

_Something whooshed past her ear. As though a cricket ball had been thrown past her. She whipped her head round to look, but the mist just swirled, disturbed by her presence and nothing else._

_Something whooshed past the other ear. She turned to look again, crying out, fear prickling inside her chest. There was still nothing but mist._

_When she looked back in front of her, a door had appeared. It stood out on its own amongst the tall, ashen trees. With nowhere else to go and no idea where she was, Hermione stepped forwards and through the doorway. It led her to a different part of the forest, though it was just as cold and just as murky. There was a large, craggy piece of rock before her. All over the rock a symbol had been carved – over and over and over, by a crude hand, etched into every bit of stone that it could fit._

_Hermione reached out and ran her fingertips over the symbol. It was the shape of a triangle with a circle in its centre, and a long straight line dissected it in the middle. "Where have I seen you before?" Hermione wondered aloud. The drawing was familiar, as though she had only been looking at it recently, but she couldn't figure it out._

_She stood there for hours, puzzling over it, until the mists grew so heavy she could no longer see._


	6. Shaking Hands With The Enemy

The dawn broke early and warm. Sunlight filled the room through the green curtains, making the dormitory a cosy emerald atmosphere.

Hermione was exhausted from the day before and from a twisting, turning night's sleep. Her stomach growled loudly in the empty room. She gave in to defeat, sat up and swung her legs off the bed. She couldn't remember, in her sleepy haze, where she was.

Then realisation hit and she felt physically sick.

Putting one foot in front of the other, she dressed herself in the spare school robes that had been left out for her, shoved her hair into its usual bushy ponytail and headed upstairs to the Great Hall in search of a strong coffee. Her mind kept wandering back to the strange symbol in her dreams. It nagged at her; it was on the tip of her tongue.

No teachers were around in the hall while she sipped her hot drink, and she was grateful. She had no patience to maintain a charade this morning. She looked out of the windows at the crisp fresh air with an ache – a long walk would be a good idea. She needed to mull over her next move, since Dumbledore's less-than-satisfactory answers weren't getting her home as soon as she'd hoped. She knocked back the rest of her coffee and headed to the front doors. Outside, she heaved in a lungful of air. The grounds smelled like they always had; she could taste the familiarity on her tongue. The creeping moss on weathered Scottish stone walls, the soaring blue skies above her that stretched mountain to mountain across the horizon, the deep and lusty grey depths of the lake – it brought her back alive. She closed her eyes and smiled into the soft breeze.

Still wanting to avoid other people, Hermione began walking towards the forest. She skimmed the edge of it and meandered her way through the trees, finding an old stump to sit on and look out at the green lawns before her. She could see the back of the greenhouses from her seat, and a couple of bodies were hunched over the cabbage patch, digging into the soil. She squinted to see who they were.

"Oh, it's Hagrid!" She laughed aloud to herself, realising that he must be around her age right now, and already training to be the future groundskeeper. Her initial joy at seeing her half-giant friend was followed by the sad conclusion that she should stay away from him. Who knew what would happen if they spoke – would it alter her timeline? Would it change her own memories? She remembered going to see the muggle film 'Back to the Future' when she was a child, and remembered how Marty McFly had been warned about meddling with his past. She waved a hand experimentally in front of her face. No fading away yet.

Hermione puzzled over time travel itself. She wondered if the concept of time, and its apparently linear flow, meant that she had interrupted it and she had already damaged the future. Or perhaps she had made an alternate time-line altogether. Perhaps it was down to making a thousand-thousand decisions, and creating a thousand-thousand parallel universes. She bit her lip. She hated being ignorant to something.

_Well then_ , she thought to herself, _that is where I should start – by researching all I can in the library..._

Hermione felt stronger in her resolve at the thought of a long study session, and stood from her tree stump. She walked back to the castle and straight up to the library. The smell of books enveloped her, like a hug from an old friend. She whiled away the rest of the morning going from shelf to shelf, following a search and cataloguing system she had perfected throughout her school years. Not that it turned up anything good.

_Moste Rationale Experiments with Time_

_An Amateur Time-Travellers Guide Through An Hour_

_Episodes of the Supernatural Clock_

_Potions and Charms to Make Your Life Appear to Move Slower_

...all useless. Hermione felt as though she had trawled through every volume and exhausted every option. The library had finally failed her, and due to his dismissive attitude yesterday Dumbledore had failed her as well. Could she ever get home – how did she even get here? Her problem was that it seemed nobody had ever done this before her. Experiments with time just weren't stable enough for continuous research. People – very, very brilliant wizards who had their hands on incredible technology and resources – had only managed a few days. Perhaps she was looking in the wrong places. After all, what could she hope to gain here in a library that for _her_ time was out of date?

A bright blue paper plane came whizzing in her direction, interrupting her trail of thought. Hermione grabbed the flying note mid-air and unfolded it.

_Miss Granger,_

_Would you care to meet me in the Transfiguration classroom for a spot of lunch?_

_Warmest regards, Prof. Albus Dumbledore_

"Finally," she mumbled. She could at last get some answers. On the way out Hermione dropped her borrowed books onto the head librarian's desk (the owner of which was a sour woman with frighteningly over-plucked eyebrows, and who wasn't far removed from her short-tempered successor, Madam Pince). She then wound her way downstairs, across the courtyard and up to the door of the transfiguration classroom. Before she could knock, it swung open. Albus Dumbledore beamed down at her.

"What a prompt arrival, Miss Granger! Do come in, the tea has just poured itself."

The classroom was as she knew it, save for a pot and two cups of tea steaming away on the teacher's desk. The teapot was wriggling itself into a wool-knitted teacosy as she sat down.

"I'm glad you asked me here, actually, Professor," Hermione said. "I have a lot to ask you."

"I don't doubt," he replied, seating himself across from her and taking a sip of his drink. He waved his wand and a variety of cakes appeared on his desk. "Can I tempt you with a Belgian Bun?"

"Um, no thank you... Listen, Professor, I'm really concerned about this plan for me to stay in the school while you go looking for a way to send me back-"

"The Headmaster and I believe it to be the safest option, for now. I explained this to you yesterday," he said as he perused the cake selection with great care.

"Shouldn't I be kept away from people? What if I mess up the future… or… meet someone that I already know…" Her mind wandered back to Hagrid, innocently digging in the cabbage patch.

"The best disguise is to hide in plain sight, my dear. You will have to work hard to be so ordinary that nobody blinks an eyelid at your being here."

"What about the teachers?" She asked, worry flooding into her voice. "Or, come to think of it, the castle ghosts? They will know me now and know me in the future."

"I will not give you special attention, nor will the other teachers, when school is in session. I will speak to the castle ghosts, and in particular to Peeves. Only a select few will know your secret, and you are safer here in a familiar setting than out on your own where anyone could stumble across you. My advice stands: be quiet; be unassuming. Keep your head down, and get home."

She frowned, unconvinced. Dumbledore pressed his fingertips together delicately and surveyed Hermione in a way that made her feel very bare.

"I understand that you are very... upset, and perhaps very angry and confused by your situation, Miss Granger."

"Yes, I am."

"However, I would urge you to keep your wits about you. You seem, to me, a very logical and self-sufficient girl and I implore that you use your innate reasoning as you go about your business here at the school, and while I search for some answers... and some help."

"Is that what you're doing then?"

"To the very, very best of my ability, yes."

Hermione felt petulant. As far as she could see, the old teacher wasn't helping her in the slightest, he was sitting there sipping on tea and disregarding her utter turmoil. Dumbledore held her gaze stoically, his blue eyes icy behind his spectacles. Then, suddenly, he dropped his glance downwards and took the glasses off his crooked nose. The effect of his startling new appearance completely disarmed Hermione, and she saw for the first time how tired the wizard looked. She pulled at the hem of her robes and changed the subject.

"I found something in the library, Professor."

Dumbledore put his glasses back on and fixed her with a calm, understanding look as if he knew what was coming.

"It was a passage about Eloise Mintumble."

"Yes, a famous and tragic tale," Dumbledore sighed. "It was an experiment gone horrifically wrong, as you would have noted. Miss Mintumble was only stranded in the year 1402 for five days, but on her return the outcome of her travel was catastrophic. She aged five centuries, and lost so many she loved because they were never born. The ministry have cooled funding for time-related experimentation since then, so I doubt they have come along very far in their research in the past 46 years."

"Even in my time, Sir, the research into prolonged – or even successful – time travel is limited."

"It is an old and complex magic as I'm sure you understand, Miss Granger. Have you ever studied it in any depth yourself?"

"Well," she said, "I did have access to a time-turner in my third year. It was given to me so that I could fit all my classes into one school day."

"Indeed?" Dumbledore's eyebrows shot up and disappeared into his frizzy auburn hair.

"It was just for that one year. I never went back further than a few hours, and kept myself out of sight as instructed by my head of house. I didn't really have any trouble using it, personally."

"The study of time travel is in its very nature subjective, and I have no doubts that what you have managed to do now far surpasses what any other has even attempted in this field. Did you have a time-turner on you when you travelled from 1997 to 1944? Perhaps this is all a quirk of technology?"

"No, Sir," she said, shaking her head. "I was in the middle of the forest, and I was-" She stopped herself before she revealed too much. She wasn't sure what this past Dumbledore would make of her scrambling about the Forest of Dean with the sword of Godric Gryffindor. "No, I wasn't wearing a time-turner."

"Hmm. That would suggest it was an exceptionally powerful spell that sent you back so far. That does help when coming up with a solution for sending you home. Eloise Mintumble was brought back to her correct period through the hard work of her colleagues, who knew exactly where and when she had gone, and who knew the correct spells to pull her back."

Hermione's breathing quickened. "So all I need to get back is a spell? Cast in the future to pull me back?"

Dumbledore smiled sadly. "Yes, but unless there is somebody in 1997 with superior knowledge of hour reversal charms or something similar, and with an extraordinary extent of power to pull off such an enterprise, it appears you will remain here for now."

Hermione swallowed loudly and tears stung her eyes. Dumbledore leaned forward.

"Is there nobody in your time capable, then?" He asked. "Not myself? You came straight to me here and asked for help – will I not aid you in the 1997?"

Hermione's gaze shot up to meet the Professor's. The look between them was strained.

"That won't be possible, Professor. You won't be… available… to help me in 1997."

He continued to stare at her silently for a long while. Eventually he leaned forward and nudged a cake towards her with a smile.

"I really must insist you take a Belgian bun," he said. Hermione picked it up and had a nibble. "Delightful! Now, I am most interested in your use of a time-turner in your third year, Miss Granger. Please do tell me how that came about."

She proceeded to explain to him the ins and outs of using the gifted time turner when she was thirteen. Their topic of conversation continued in that vein for many hours, until all the tea and been drunk and dusk had fallen outside that high classroom windows surrounding them.

"Goodness! Would you look at the time!" Dumbledore exclaimed. "I'd better escort you to the welcome feast – the other students should be arriving by now, and it wouldn't do for us to be the only ones arriving late."

They ambled back across the courtyard and into the entrance hall. The first-years were being ushered in through the doors and a couple of teachers and prefects were there to welcome them. Hermione was about to slip into the feast quietly when she heard her name being called, and turned around. Professor Slughorn was bouncing on the balls of his feet and waving her over.

"Little Miss Granger! Excellent! Marvellous!" He greeted her as she approached. "Now, listen. You will need to follow the first-years into the Hall this evening so that you can be announced to our house after the Sorting Ceremony. The ceremony is a fun little Hogwarts tradition where we-"

"I don't think that's a good idea Sir," Hermione interrupted, alarmed. Being dramatically announced to the entire student body was the last thing she needed. "I'm terrible with too many people looking at me..."

"Nonsense, you'll be fine! How will your new school chums be able to recognise you if we just plonk you straight in amongst them? You need a proper introduction! Now, as I was saying, this Sorting Ceremony is something we do every year at Hogwarts..." He rambled on. Cornered, Hermione looked around desperately for back-up, but Dumbledore had already disappeared into the Great Hall. She stood glum and nervous with the straggly band of first-years surrounding her.

"Let me show you our superb way of keeping track of house points," Slughorn continued, yanking Hermione unceremoniously towards the four giant hourglasses near the front doors. She sighed, nodding politely in the right places for the old Potions-master, wishing she were anywhere but here.

"...And this is our headboy, Tom Riddle."

Hermione's greeting smile was already halfway onto her face, and her hand already raised to shake. She had mere seconds to recognise the name. The world was spinning in slow-motion.

He gripped her palm in a solid, firm handshake.

"Welcome to Hogwarts, Miss Granger."

As soon as their skin connected, lightning struck outside. The glass in one window pane of the entrance hall smashed inwards. Torrential rain and wind came howling inside and the doors to the castle were thrown open. The younger students ran screaming for cover, pelting away to the back of the hall.

"What in the _blazes_!" Yelled Slughorn. Hundreds and hundreds of ghasts, more than Hermione had ever seen, began screeching their way into the building. They clawed and clambered and collided. The sound and sheer size of them made Hermione's ears start to bleed, and she threw up her hands to protect herself.

Tom Riddle immediately cast a protective shield in front of them both, stopping the worst of the horde from getting too close. She could hear his ragged breathing next to her from the effort of holding them off.

Slughorn raised his wand and began attacking the swarm. At the same time Dumbledore, Dippet and a couple of the other teachers came rushing out of the Great Hall, the rest of the students pressing in close behind them to see what was happening. More screams added to the chaos, more yelling increased the din.

Dumbledore performed the same spell as before, casting an arc of white incandescence that burned the ghasts back into the hell they came from.

The screaming stopped. The room fell quiet as the last ghast faded away.

Tom lowered his ward, looking down at Hermione, who had been cowering beneath his outstretched arm. She stood up properly and met his gaze. He had a strange look in his eyes – a look of intense curiosity. He was about to say something to her but was interrupted by the explosion of talk from the students and the angry shouting of the teachers.

"What the _devil_ happened there!"

" _How_ did they get inside the grounds? This is not good enough, not after the disaster of the Chamber of Secrets-"

"The governors will not stand for this! What is Hogwarts, if it is not properly protected?"

"Silence! Silence, all of you!" Dumbledore yelled, his voice amplified to an an unnatural degree. Silence fell, on both teachers and students alike. "I would ask that the heads of houses and their prefects escort everyone back to their dormitories. You lot," he turned to the first-years, still huddling together in a corner, "will go into the hall and wait. The headmaster and I will come and get you sorted presently, after we have tidied up."

"But Professor!" Piped up Merrythought, shaking and pale. "What about the welcome feast?"

"The feast is cancelled. It is not safe to gather tonight."

A tense quiet followed his words, as the students and other teachers looked hesitantly at headmaster Dippet for approval. He nodded, a frown deeply embedded on his face.

"Go on. Do as he says."

The clamour of voices grew again as everyone began to shuffle their way in the right direction: Gryffindors to their tower and the Ravenclaws to theirs; the Hufflepuffs went off to the kitchens and the Slytherins descended the stone steps to the dungeons. Hermione followed suit, not daring a look back at the smashed glass and worried faces standing by the front doors.

The Slytherin students were loud and excitable as they made their way down. Hermione kept quiet and unassuming, trying to camouflage herself in the crowd.

"Did you hear it smash the windows, though? It was like a hurricane!" One student behind her said to a friend.

"My older brother Wendel studied storm magic for his NEWTs, so I know it would take an immense amount of power to pull it off," his friend replied.

Hermione wasn't currently worrying about the ghasts. She was lost in the horror that she had completely forgotten about the existence of Tom Riddle. In Hogwarts. With her.

_Oh God, how could I have been so stupid!_ She thought to herself, face grim as they neared the entrance to the Slytherin common room. _It's 1944! Of course he's here!_

"Quieten down, everyone, quieten down!" Boomed Slughorn from the front of the throng. "Get inside and wait for me – I want a word with all of you before you go to bed…"

They all filed in and assembled themselves around the room, some seated and some standing, the chatter fading away when Slughorn came in and cleared his throat to address them.

"Now," he began, clasping and unclasping his hands several times. The students eyed each other nervously. "Now, I want you all to mind what you say to other students," he continued. "I will not have a repeat of last year and all that Chamber of Secrets nonsense, where we Slytherins had a jolly bad time of it – no, _no_ , you will each conduct yourselves with propriety and dignity befitting our house-"

"Is it like last time, Sir?" Piped up a tall lad standing near the fireplace. "Is someone practising dark magic in the school again?"

"Goodness, no, Jenkins! And I won't have you throwing around wild conspiracies theories either…"

Hermione's interest in Slughorn's speech faded as she noticed Tom Riddle watching her with a curious intensity that sent a shiver down her spine. When she met his gaze, he tilted his head, like a large cat would contemplate its prey before pouncing. Unnerved, she looked away and back at Slughorn.

"…Really quite safe," he was saying. "The other teachers and I will find out what caused this freak accident, and ward against it happening again."

"What about classes? Will we be able to start them as normal tomorrow, Sir?" Asked a redhead fourth year.

"Yes, of course. Like I said, you will be perfectly safe. Just a quirk of the school's ancient magic. I don't doubt that it's happened several times before…"

A loud popping noise interrupted his ramblings. Several house elves appeared with their tiny arms stacked with trays of food – the remnants of the welcome feast and every pudding Hermione could think of.

"Sorry, sirs and misses! The headmaster instructed us to bring the food along to all the young witches and wizardses in their common rooms! 'Tis safer, he said!"

"Yes, thank you, please help yourselves," Slughorn said as the Slytherins descended themselves upon the dinner. Wanting to avoid any awkward conversation, Hermione tried to slip away unnoticed. Slughorn cornered her before she could.

"Oh, and another announcement! If I could have your attention once more!" He bellowed. Hermione winced. "This is Miss Hermione Granger, a new student joining us for her final NEWT year. Isn't that nice?"

Hermione looked around, cringing, at the sea of confused faces. Her new classmates. To her immense relief they all turned, disinterested, back to their own conversations and plates of food. Hermione managed to wriggle herself away from Slughorn, smiling and apologising for how 'tired' she was. She escaped to the girls' dormitories. She hid herself behind the curtains of her four poster bed – she knew that avoiding the inevitable was a stupid idea, but she felt as though she had been dumped in the middle of an ocean and was starting to drown. She kept quiet and still when the other seventh year girls came to bed, giggling and chatting. The lights finally went out and she breathed a sigh of relief that nobody had attempted to greet her.

Hours passed. No matter how hard she tried, Hermione couldn't get any rest. She tossed and turned. Eventually she gave up and padded out into the common room searching for a drink of water. She found a jug and glass on a spare end-table and gulped down the fresh liquid greedily. A heartbeat too late, she realised she wasn't alone.

"Argh!" She exclaimed, stumbling back and almost dropping her glass. A dark figure was relaxing on an armchair by the fireplace, legs crossed and watching her with that same deep fervour.

"H-h-hello," she stuttered, clutching at her chest.

A small smile lifted the corner of Tom Riddle's mouth.

" _Hello_ ," he said, voice like smooth silk. "Granger, isn't it?"

She nodded.

"I want to know something."

"You do?"

"Yes," he said. "How did you do it?"

"Do it? Do what?"

"How did you cast such a strong summoning charm?" He uncrossed his legs and leaned forwards. "It must have taken a great deal of power to summon so many ghasts, and on protected grounds, too. How did you do it?" He was almost breathless, eyes roving over her face with blatant interest.

"I… I don't know what you mean..."

He stood in one fluid movement and walked towards her, stopping just a hairsbreadth away. She instinctively leaned back.

"Come now," he purred. "I saw what you did back there. I felt the magic when we shook hands. It was very impressive, and remarkably useful."

" _Useful_?"

"Yes, of course. I'm always quick to notice a good resource." He grinned like a cheshire cat. Hermione just blinked blankly at him, unsure how to reply. He clearly thought she had powerful dark magic at her disposal – and considering how the ghasts seemed to follow her around, maybe she did. But aside from that, she was afraid of Riddle. She didn't know how to speak to the boy in front of her. She looked in his eyes, she looked at his Gaunt family ring, and she knew she was standing in front of a killer. He was already changing, already forming. It scared her witless.

"I'm sorry, but I can't help you. Goodnight."

She turned and fled back to her dormitory.

Hermione had no idea that would only be the beginning of her problems with Riddle. After that, he was everywhere she went. Every classroom, every corridor corner. She collided with him twice on Wednesday on the way to Ancient Runes alone. He was perfectly polite, picking up her books for her, dusting off her robes as she stood up. He did not mention the ghasts again. His charming disposition only furthered her feelings of discomfort. She couldn't tell if it was him, or if there was a malevolent god somewhere above, waving around a giant 'Tom Riddle' magnet in her direction and laughing cruelly.

As for the bad dreams, they plagued her. They kept repeating themselves, night after night, that entire first week. The mysterious symbol, looming and dark, never strayed too far from her thoughts.

She was exhausted.


	7. The Dreams Continue

_More mist, more doors, more symbols. The elaborate triangle loomed – almost jeered – in front of her eyes._

_Where had she seen it before? Why did it bother her now? With every doorway she stepped through, more the answers eluded her._

_"Ron?" She called out gently. "Harry?"_

_Deafening silence answered her words._

_She was utterly alone._


	8. The First Week

The first week of classes passed by in a blur. The excited gossip amongst the students about the mysterious ghasts died down pretty quickly once the mundane routine of new timetables, homework and the odd detention set in. For the first time in her academic life, Hermione didn't care about paying attention. She pretended to listen to Professor Benedict's instructions on how to correctly perform the 'Arresto Momentum' charm. She barely got herself through Potions, dumping any mixture of ingredients into her cauldron and leaving straight on the bell. She pretended to take notes on Professor Scott's discussion on the magical properties of the number 7 during Arithmancy class. It all seemed redundant to her now. Faded. She did her best to behave and keep her head down, do the bare minimum required of her – she still couldn't believe that Dumbledore thought this was the best option, rather than hiding out in a cave halfway up a mountain somewhere.

 _I_ _shouldn't be here,_ she thought to herself. She felt insolent. _What was it that Dumbledore had said about 'the best disguise is hiding in plain sight'…?_

"Miss Granger?"

She jolted to attention. Professor Scott was staring at her. She turned – so were the rest of the class.

"I'm sorry, Miss Scott, what did you say?"

Professor Scott sighed. "I asked you when it was that Bridget Wenlock first discovered her theorem of the number 7?"

"Oh." Hermione blinked, trying to remember the answer. "She… she discovered its uses in the thirteenth century. She wrote down her theorem during breakfast on the back of an envelope, in invisible ink."

Professor Scott pursed her lips. "That's a perfect answer, Miss Granger. But please do try to pay proper attention while in my class. I don't stand in front of you all talking just for the good of my health."

Hermione nodded mutely and sank a little lower in her seat, avoiding the stares of her classmates. There was a knock at the door ten minutes later, and a Slytherin prefect entered, looking around awkwardly.

"Yes, Miss Droope? What can I help you with?" Barked Professor Scott.

"Sorry, Miss, I have been told by Professor Slughorn that he needs to speak to someone called Hermione Granger. 'Fetch her at once', he said."

"At once? During _class_?"

"Um… yes, Miss. Sorry, Miss."

"What kind of audacity… Well go on then, Granger! You wouldn't want to keep the esteemed Professor Slughorn waiting!" The Arithmancy teacher scowled, looking as though she would be having a stern word with Slughorn later. Hermione obediently gathered her books and trotted out of the classroom after the prefect.

She was led down to Slughorn's office, where the prefect left her. Hermione drew in a deep breath, praying for patience, and knocked on the door. Slughorn called out a distant 'come in!'. She entered the room to find the head of house standing, drinking and chatting amiably with another seventh-year student. Hermione tried a tentative smile, but the other girl just scowled at her.

"Good to see you, Miss Granger! Come over and have a butterbeer… There you go. Now, I'm sure you're wondering why I called you in to see me so urgently…"

"Yes, Sir," she said, glancing nervously at the girl, who was still scowling. "I was in the middle of Arithmancy class…"

"Ah. Miss Scott might give me a little telling-off later, then," Slughorn said with a sheepish grin. "Anyway! I was asking around to see how you were fitting in and all that. Very disappointed to hear that you… ah… aren't."

The patience Hermione had prayed for was already waning. She didn't need the potions master sticking his oar in. She didn't need any oars, anywhere – she needed a rock to hide under, while this all went away.

"Um… The thing is, Sir…" Hermione cast around wildly for an excuse. "I've been a bit overwhelmed. As you know, I was homeschooled by my parents up until recently-"

"Ew, really? _Homeschooled_?" The scowling girl asked, curiosity getting the better of her.

"Oh, yes!" Slughorn cut in. "Right up until they tragically died of smallpox last year, Miss Granger had been taught by her parents. Although now I think about it, I'm not sure how they managed, seeing as though they were muggles…"

"Well, like I said," Hermione interrupted quickly, not wanting too much of a light shone onto her fake cover story. "I've been a bit overwhelmed. I haven't had time to make any friends yet."

This made Slughorn's large, gingery-blonde moustache twitch with glee.

"Just as I suspected. Now I want you to understand that you will find no better classmates, and no stronger family, than those of Slytherin house! That's why I've assigned you a 'buddy'. A very modern way of teaching, but in this case I think it will work well. Miss Rhonda Whittlewood here has the excellent task of showing you around, and helping you settle into your new surroundings. She's going to teach you all about the mighty serpent spirit! What fun!"

Rhonda looked as though she couldn't care less about the 'mighty serpent spirit', and sneered at Hermione.

"Sir," the girl tittered, putting down her bottle of butterbeer with exaggerated delicacy. "I appreciate the responsibility of this role, but my own parents would rather I didn't associate myself with mudbloods whilst at-"

"Have a care, Rhonda! I'm sure nobody is more embarrassed of their lineage than our Miss Granger here," Slughorn boomed jovially, clapping Hermione on the back. Some of her drink slopped out onto the floor. She forced out a smile, reminding herself that there was no point getting angry. _Keep your head down, get yourself home_. She repeated it like a mantra in her mind. She wished that she hadn't told Slughorn anything about her parents, no matter how irritating he had been. Clearly he had been doing his homework since then, finding out what he could about her – he had apparently decided she was to be taken under his wing, and looked after. Looking back at Rhonda, Hermione knew that she was starting to stick out like a sore thumb in the Slytherin ranks.

"Why don't you two run along and get better acquainted, eh? You'll be chums in no time," Slughorn prodded.

"Of course, Professor," Rhonda smiled sweetly, pushing past Hermione to leave the room. Hermione sighed, put the untouched butterbeer down, and followed her new _chum_ out. It wasn't until they were halfway up the stairs from the dungeons, and well out of earshot, that Rhonda turned on her.

 _Could have seen that one coming_ , Hermione thought.

"Now listen here, mudblood," she started, setting Hermione's teeth on edge. She couldn't get used to the slur no matter how many times she heard it.

"I'm listening, pureblood," Hermione spat back. Rhonda turned an ugly shade of red.

"We are not friends," the taller girl said. She leered over Hermione, looking venomous. "We are, in no way possible, ever going to be. I do not associate with you people. I don't even know how you managed to get yourself sorted into Slytherin. We can play it up for the teachers-" She moved a step closer and lowered her voice, "-but otherwise, you can stay away from me. Freak."

Rhonda stalked off, leaving Hermione fuming. She was in no mood for Tom Riddle to suddenly make an appearance, as he had been doing since the start of the week.

"Ugh." She said as he climbed the stairs towards her, smiling his pretty, polite smile.

"Do you greet everyone that way, or is it reserved for just me?" He stopped at her step. He was still grinning.

"Why are you following me?" She hissed. "Leave me alone."

Tom feigned surprise. "Me, following you? Here I thought it was the other way around, Granger. I can't seem to get rid of you." He leaned in too close towards her, invading her space. She could smell his cedarwood aftershave. She breathed it in deeply, refusing to flinch from his gaze. "What are you doing scurrying around by yourself anyway?"

"I had a free period," she lied. She still would not look away. The air between them tingled.

"Did you?" He murmured, his gaze lingering over her lips. "Or are you busy planning your next little magic trick?"

"I don't know what you mean." Her voice came out hoarse, like there wasn't much left of it. "I never summoned those ghasts, Riddle. I told you that the other night."

"Of _course_ not. It all happened by accident. A 'quirk' of the school's ancient magic. Nothing to do with you."

He was so close to her. She could hear the space around them crackling with electricity.

"Miss Granger?" Called out a voice. Both Hermione and Tom jumped, stepping away from each other quickly. Hermione looked up and saw Dumbledore standing at the top of the stairs. "Could I have a private word, if you don't mind?" The elder wizard ignored Tom as if he wasn't there.

"Of course, Professor," Hermione said. A deep blush warmed her face – she felt as though she'd been caught with her hand in the cookie jar. She hurried to Dumbledore's side and followed him to his office.

Once inside, Hermione began to immediately bombard Dumbledore with questions.

"-and those ghasts, those awful things, I have no idea what they are – why do they keep following me? Am I safe? Has someone sent them after me?"

Dumbledore raised a palm for quiet. Hermione obliged, sitting down opposite him at his desk.

"The ghasts," Dumbledore began, taking a seat wearily, "are here because you are here. They are creatures that feed from the void – the space 'in between'. Since you have damaged the fabric of time and all reality by travelling so far into the past, the 'in between' has a wound that is open and gaping. The ghasts are here to lick that wound clean."

"Oh."

"Yes, oh. I thought that I had dealt with the situation when you arrived with a horde of them in Hogsmeade. Clearly, I was incorrect. More came through to follow you into the castle."

"I've never heard of them before," Hermione said, shuddering at the memory of the horde, getting bigger and bigger each time she saw it.

"When people use time-turners, there is a charm imbued into the tool that wards against time-related damage, which circumvents the ghasts. If one were intelligent and brave enough to perform a time-travel spell without a time-turner, one would run the risk of creating a ghast. You came so far and caused so much damage, they seem to keep attacking you. Bringing you onto the grounds should have protected you."

Realisation dawned on Hermione.

"Is that why you want me to stay in Hogwarts and pretend to be a student, Professor? Because of the ghasts?"

"Yes, that was my thinking. It was also convenient to have a stronghold of deeply embedded protective magic so close by. The creatures shouldn't have been able to break through the layers of magical safeguards the school has – the other teachers and I have been adding additional wards every day since they broke through, but I fear that they won't hold for long. If I could work out what it is about you that keeps letting them in, I could offer you more permanent protection."

Hermione chewed on her lip. She had a feeling she knew what had let them in the other night.

"They broke through when I shook Tom Riddle's hand."

"Is he important?"

"No," Hermione said quickly. She wasn't sure how much she should let Dumbledore know about the future, especially a future involving him directly. "No, that's just when it happened. At that exact moment."

Dumbledore surveyed her quietly for a few moments before he spoke again.

"If you know Tom in the future, perhaps it was a bad idea to let you socialise amongst the other students-"

"I don't! Know him, I mean. We've never met, or spoken. He doesn't know who I am."

"The thing about Tom Riddle," Dumbledore said, looking at Hermione directly over his half-moon spectacles, "Is that he is a very troubled young man. You would do well to leave him be, and keep yourself to yourself."

Hermione swallowed, thinking of the intoxicating smell of cedarwood. "Yes, Sir."

"Saying that, I believe the handshake is important. Perhaps you touching, or interacting, with certain people in the past is affecting how the ghasts get through. I can create a powerful protection charm on an object – a piece of jewellery will do the trick – and if you keep that object on you at all times, the problem should be solved."

"Would that work?" Hermione asked, chewing on her lip again.

"Yes," Dumbledore beamed. "You should be ghast-free, handshake or no handshake."

After handing over the only piece of jewellery Hermione wore – a delicate, plain gold necklace – she spent the rest of the second period and all of the lunch hour sitting at Dumbledore's side while he performed a series of complex charms that promised to protect her. She hadn't realised he and the other teachers had been working so hard to keep the school safe, while she had been throwing a tantrum about being trapped here. She felt a surge of gratitude towards the older wizard. He really was intent on helping her, but it wouldn't happen overnight. Warm and trusting, Hermione confessed something on her mind.

"I'm having trouble sleeping, Sir."

"I would be too, if I were in your shoes," Dumbledore replied, concentrating on his wandwork. The necklace glowed pink, then purple, then blue.

"No, but it's like… my dreams, they're real. They feel real. And there's this symbol…"

Dumbledore kept applying charms. The necklace kept glowing.

"It's sort of a triangle shape, with a circle, and a line through it…"

More charms, more glowing. Dumbledore was rapt in concentration.

"And I have the strangest feeling, like I've seen it before… That mark keeps cropping up every time I dream… It's just _there_. Triangle. Circle. Line through it."

Dumbledore snapped his head up. The glow from the necklace died out.

"Miss Granger, are you talking about the Deathly Hallows?"

"The – _what_ , Professor?"

Dumbledore sat up straight and stared at her with concern. "It's a rare symbol," he said. "Many believe it to be the mark of dark wizards, although that's not strictly true…"

Hermione clasped her hand to her mouth. She remembered Viktor Krum explaining that the mark was evil, that it was the mark of Grindelwald. Who was alive and at large _now_. But it couldn't be the mark of Grindelwald, because -

"I saw it on that grave in Godric's Hollow…"

"What were you doing in Godric's Hollow, Miss Granger?"

"That grave was much older than Grindelwald…" She continued. Hermione was trying to fit the pieces of the puzzle together in her mind. "Professor, do you know if there was a wizard called Ignotus that has anything to do with the Deathly Hallows?"

Dumbledore paled. "Ignotus Peverell?"

"Maybe," Hermione mused. "If he's buried in Godric's Hollow, then yes."

Silence fell between them.

"I think you should be going, Miss Granger. You will miss your next class."

"I'm sorry, Professor? Is everything alright?"

"Quite fine!" Dumbledore said, his voice strained. "Here, take the necklace. You will be safe from ghast activity, provided you stay within Hogwarts grounds."

"Oh, okay…" Hermione said, accepting the necklace and standing up. "But if you know anything about the Deathly Hallows then I'd love to-"

"Get to class, Miss Granger. You don't want to be late." Dumbledore said coldly, and Hermione took the hint. She hurried out of the Transfiguration classroom as quickly as she could.

As soon as the door closed behind her and she was gone, Dumbledore hastily pulled out a quill, ink and parchment, and began to write a letter.

_My Dearest Elphias,_

_I have found the spy. Gellert's sent in a child, and not converted one of the teachers as I originally suspected he would. But Elphias, she's not just any child – she is a girl that has travelled back in time. This consolidates our fears, old friend. Gellert has his hands on magical technology far beyond our own abilities._

_For now, do not let the others know. We will continue to send agents into Europe as red herrings, to keep our enemy off the scent. I will maintain my 'friendship' with this girl, and find out what I can. As for your task, keep at it my dear – we know He has the wand, but we must find the stone and cloak, before it is too late._

_As for the end-game... I believe it is not long now. We will soon have what we need to bring Gellert to heel._

_Yours ever faithfully,_

_Albus_

Dumbledore sucked on the end of the quill for a moment, thinking something over. Then below his signature he added the final line:

_The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death._


	9. Can They Hear Her?

" _And you're sure you didn't see anything else?" Harry was saying. Hermione almost fell over herself in joy to hear his voice. As she concentrated on the sound, a hazy scene sprung up around her: both her friends, standing with one another in the tent, back in the woods where she had disappeared from._

" _No, I told you, just darkness. I tried following the Deluminator light over and over but it kept going out. I tried all night, Harry. It's like the light is trying to take me to Hermione, but can't," Ron said. He looked exhausted._

_Hermione tried crying out to them. But she was stuck in a dream, and nothing came out of her – no sound, not even a hoarse whisper. She was muted. She tried waving her hands around in their faces, but the boys couldn't see her._

" _It's pointless." Harry buried his face in his hands._

" _Don't say that, mate." Ron reached out and held his friend's shoulder firmly. "She'll come back. She wouldn't leave us. Maybe she accidentally disapparated, or-"_

" _Why would she disapparate at a time like that?" Harry asked wearily, raising his head. "She'd splinch herself."_

" _The whole thing was weird, I agree."_

_Hermione, frustrated, tried to scream out at them. She was right here! Just turn around and look!_

_As she thought this, the wind picked up outside the tent._

_Ron whipped his head round. "What was that? Did you hear something?"_

_Encouraged, Hermione tried to call out again. Nothing happened._

" _It's just the weather," Harry said. After a minute of two of nothing, Ron nodded._

" _Yeah, you're probably right."_

_No, Hermione thought, almost sobbing. I'm right here, and I can see you._

_Hermione's vision slowly faded… Swirling mist swallowed the boys and the tent._

" _Take me back!" She screamed. "Take me back! Take me ba-"_

Hermione found herself sitting bolt upright in her bed, panting, with all the other seventh-year girls staring at her. Their faces held a mixture of irritation, confusion and fear.

"Do you mind shutting-the-fuck-up, Freak?" Said Rhonda, her hair bound tightly in rollers.

"Yes, do you mind?" Another girl said, throwing a pillow in Hermione's direction. "If you're going to scream at this time every night, you can sleep in the common room."

"I'm s-sorry," stammered Hermione. With a few more annoyed murmurs, the girls returned to their slumber.

The full moon outside shone brightly all the way until dawn.


	10. Making Contact

"Shit, shit, shit." Hermione wrung her hands together. It was gone 9pm, she was hovering outside the Transfiguration classroom in the freezing cold courtyard, and she was doing her best to be inconspicuous. The disillusionment charm helped.

The entire weekend had been a washout. Rhonda had passed around the information that she was muggleborn, making her a pariah in her fellow Slytherins' eyes, and Dumbledore had done a spectacular job of avoiding her every time she tried to speak with him. She had tried to search the library again for any time-travel related information, and had also begun a new search on the Deathly Hallows, now that she had a name for the mark plaguing her unconscious moments. Her searches had been just as fruitless as before, turning up nothing useful.

But with the information she already had, a plan had begun to form in her mind. A reckless plan. A shot in the dark, really, but shots in the dark were all she had at her disposal.

Her dreams now consisted of simply watching Harry and Ron as they sat around in the tent and speculated on her disappearance. She knew that if she could get a message to them somehow, from the past to the future, then a line of communication could be set up. She needed them to visit Xenophilius Lovegood, the only other person in the future she knew had some knowledge of the Deathly Hallows – she was sure it was important somehow. Why else would Dumbledore chuck her out of his office so promptly?

Once she knew _what_ she wanted to tell the boys, she needed to figure out _how_ to tell them. She had racked her brains for a long while. She needed something that existed both in the future, with them, and now, with her. And then it had clicked.

A cold gust of wind blasted against her from over the dark grounds. _Any minute now_ , she thought. Then at last the door to the classroom opened, and Dumbledore stepped out. She pressed herself harder against the stone wall to avoid detection. She watched and waited, too scared to breathe, as Dumbledore locked the door behind him, walked across the courtyard and disappeared into the main castle. Once she was sure he wasn't coming back for any reason, she turned to the classroom door.

"Alohomora," she whispered. She slipped inside without a sound.

She rushed across the room and to the back door, which opened into Dumbledore's cramped office.

"Lumos."

It took Hermione a little while, searching from bookshelf to bookshelf, before she found the book she was looking for. She gingerly pulled it down and sat at the desk. She ran her fingertips over the outer page; the embossed runes glinted in the wandlight, a little less worn-out than she knew them, but they still read the same words: 'The Tales of Beedle the Bard'.

Having stolen what she had come here to steal, she exited the Transfiguration classroom as quietly as she could. The tingling in her fingertips indicated the disillusionment charm was starting to wear off. The plan now was to find a quiet place alone, write a message in the book for Harry and Ron, and see if it turns up in the future. It was risky business, meddling with time like this, but she didn't see what choice she had. Hermione just hoped that it didn't attract any unwanted - she shuddered at the thought of ghasts - attention. She reached up and clung to her necklace, praying it was enough to protect her in what she was about to do.

She was halfway back across the entrance hall when she collided with someone. She knew, without looking, exactly who that someone was.

"What are you doing?"

"What are _you_ doing?"

"Whatever I like. I'm head boy," Tom growled. He clearly hadn't expected company this evening.

"Isn't it a bit late for a stroll, head boy?"

Her mocking tone pissed him off. He lunged forward and grabbed her by the wrist, pulling her tightly into him. "I'm getting tired of you being under my feet all the time, little witch," he said, his grip tightening. Hermione fought against him, wriggling for her wand.

"Get off me!"

"Or what?"

"I'll curse you into next week, that's what!"

Tom barked out a laugh, releasing her. Hermione immediately yanked out her wand and pointed it at his throat.

"This, I'd like to see. Go on, Granger," he said, his gaze full of fire. "I dare you."

She didn't hesitate. "Expelliarmus!"

Tom deflected her easily. "Protego," he muttered, and her spell bounced away. "I've a feeling you can perform something much more potent than a disarming spell. _Go on_ ," he baited her.

"Titillando!"

This time Tom dived out of the way, and shot her a counter-attack.

"Ventus!"

Hermione screeched and lunged behind a suit of armour. The spell bounced off the armour, hitting the wall behind Tom's head and taking a large chunk out of it. The cracking sound echoed around the room.

"My, my! You need to brush up on your counter-jinxes, Granger! That was an easy one!" He then threw two silent jinxes her way, each one bouncing off the brickwork either side of her as she cowered behind cover. Not wanting him to have too much of an advantage, Hermione pointed her wand at the back of the suit of armour's head. "Oppugno!" She cried.

The suit picked up its sword and ran, clanging and banging, towards Tom. Delighted surprise lit up his face as he dodged it.

"Intuitive!" He laughed, transfiguring the suit into a harmless rubber duck.

Hermione felt a wave of both fury and pride at his words. Fury, because he was belittling her like she was his pupil, learning the tricks of the trade. Pride, because the darkest wizard of all time was impressed with her duelling skills.

Now that she had no cover, Tom turned his wand on Hermione. Impressed as he might be, he wasn't about to lose the fight.

"Don't even think about it, Riddle," Hermione muttered to herself. She darted sideways past him, throwing a silent hex as she went. He just about yelled "Protego!" in time.

"If you play dirty, then I play dirty, witch," shouted Tom, as Hermione crouched low behind the banister of the marble staircase.

 _One, two, three, four_ spells came flying at the top of her head, carving out chunks of the marble in front of her. She covered her eyes from the dust. She would have just run out and faced him, but she didn't trust her own shield charm against his assaults. If she could only catch him off-guard...

Hermione took a bold move and stood from her hiding place. She drew a deep breath to cast her hex-

"WHAT ON EARTH ARE YOU BOTH DOING? THROWING SPELLS AROUND – AND AT THIS HOUR!" The shrill shrieking of Professor Merrythought stopped them both in their tracks. They turned to her, wincing.

"How dare you! Look at the damage you've done to the walls!" She was incoherent for a minute as she surveyed the little piles of dust and rubble around them.

"Detention. Double-detention. You are both going to have so much detention, you won't see the outside world until after Christmas!"

Tom turned on the waterworks. "But, Professor... You know how much I struggle with my emotions sometimes... Being raised in that orphanage..."

Merrythought started to back down in front of the forlorn young man. "I quite understand, Tom, but this is taking it a little too far..."

"Exactly! Wouldn't you agree that this is out of character for me? I humbly, _deeply_ apologise. I get so worked up when I think of that awful place, I didn't mean to-"

Hermione rolled her eyes. "Oh, you think your life is so _tragic_ ," she snapped. She could hear the edge in her voice but couldn't help it; he brought something out in her that, if she was honest, scared her half to death.

"Don't you dare talk to me like that," he snarled, and the thrill of competition rose once again in Hermione's chest. She had prodded the wasp nest.

"Stop it, at once!" Shouted Merrythought, none too early – Tom was again raising his wand towards her, and Hermione had a white-knuckle grip on her own. "If you two young ones cannot get along, we'll have to figure something out to _make_ you."

...

The something, it turned out, surprised both Tom and Hermione alike.

...

"Welcome to the Hogwarts Dramatic Arts Society!" Crowed Professor Beery at them the next day, as they entered a disused classroom on the fourth floor.

"Heaven, spare me," Tom muttered under his breath.

The room was decorated ceiling to floor with multi-coloured silk curtains, and was littered with broken stage props, battered old trunks overflowing with costumes, and in the middle stood a wild array of students ranging from first to seventh year. They all smiled and waved in greeting, looking just as painfully cheerful as Beery himself.

"Come in, come in!" Said Beery. "I know this is meant to be a punishment, but there can be no punishment when it comes to the sweet, sweet caresses of the theatre!" He clapped his hands together. Hermione and Tom walked carefully into the room, taking their place next to the other students.

"Now, everyone, where were we? Ah, yes! We were discussing what show to perform this year!"

"I still think that The Fountain of Fair Fortune is the best option, Herbert! Maybe our new guy and gal here can take the lead, as well," one of the students said with far too much enthusiasm.

Hermione did a double-take. _Herbert?_

"Don't look so shocked, my dear!" Beery said to her. "I always encourage my students to call me by my first name. Don't consider me a teacher when you're with us at the Dramatic Arts Society… consider me one of your friends," he winked. Hermione tried to smile back at him, but found she couldn't muster the energy.

"Aaaand yes, Colin, that is an excellent suggestion. Miss Granger and Mr Riddle can play our leads, since they're new. We don't break anyone in gently round here, do we chaps?" Beery laughed and so did the others.

Hermione felt as though the rug had been pulled from underneath her. She started to protest. "While Tom and I think your pantomimes are probably great, Professor-"

"Herbert," interrupted Beery.

"Um, yes, Herbert… While we think that your work is really good, we are actually here for detention. We shouldn't be in the play itself."

Tom, clearly not keen on the limelight either, backed her up. "I completely agree with Miss Granger, Professor," he said.

"Herbert." Beery's eyes twinkled with the tiniest bit of annoyance.

"Yes, _Herbert_ ," Tom ground out through gritted teeth. "We're here for detention only. Write lines. Clean things. All of that."

"O-ho! Look what we have here, chaps!" Beery grinned round at the drama students. Hermione shuddered at the glee on all their faces.

"Introverts! Introverts!" They all chimed.

"I'm sorry?" Said Tom, looking alarmed at all of the talking in unison.

"In-tro-verts! A male and female Apollo, right here! We do not accept shyness at the Dramatic Arts Society. No, we do not," Beery tutted, shaking his head at Tom and Hermione. "Now, I have a splendid idea for the two of you. Not only will you be my leads, but we will be performing The Warlock's Hairy Heart."

The drama students cooed around them.

"The Warlock's Hairy _what_?" Tom's mouth was pulled down in disgust.

"I see it now!" Beery said, gripping Hermione and Tom by the shoulders and pushing them together. Hermione was hit with a wave of that cedarwood aftershave. "The dashing, clever young warlock, who sees any and all emotions as a weakness, trying his best not to fall in love… And then he meets a fair young maiden," he smiled down at Hermione. "Who is both fascinated and disgusted with the warlock at first… she says she will fall in love with him only if she knows he has a heart…"

"Is this going somewhere?" Asked Tom, his voice like a knife-edge.

"Oh, and that warlock showed her his heart, which had been locked away for many years," Beery continued, ignoring any interruptions. "So many years, in fact, that the warlock's heart had grown old and hairy!"

"No! What happened then!" Cried the drama students.

"The warlock can no longer use his old heart, he must take a fresh one… And he betrays his beloved, and rips out her heart for himself!"

Hermione glanced up at Tom. He was looking down at her, his face unreadable.

"But he could not handle the power that came from both of them, and so he dies, a heart held woefully in each hand!"

The students burst into applause. Hermione couldn't believe the ridiculous situation she had got herself in.

The rest of the evening was spent writing up scripts and trying on costumes. Tom seemed to be deliberately avoiding her gaze, his face impassive as Beery danced around him. She was glad when the 'detention' was finally over, and they could leave. She and Tom walked down to the Slytherin common room in stony silence. Only when they were each heading to their dormitories did he speak to her.

"Goodnight, Granger."

She turned to look at him so fast her neck cricked. The fierce curiosity was back, smouldering in his dark eyes. She knew who he was, and yet she couldn't help herself from replying.

"Goodnight, Riddle."

She watched him disappear into the boy's dormitory. She was alone, at last.

Surreptitiously, Hermione pulled the copy of The Tales of Beedle the Bard out of the pocket of her robes, where it had been hiding since last night. It was time to carry out her experiment. She grabbed a spare quill and ink bottle from a coffee table and sat down by the fireplace.

She started to write on the back page… Then stopped herself. If she left a note now, one that she needed Harry and Ron to read in the future, wouldn't she have noticed it herself? Every time she picked up the gift from Dumbledore, she would have seen her own note. And that would have created a paradox.

Stumped, Hermione put down her quill. If she didn't remember the note, it had never been written. Unless…

Hermione flipped back to the front of the book, and using a transfiguration spell, added in extra pages. She then cast a charm over them to make them invisible. Now nobody could see her hidden notes, unless they were specifically hunting for them. She would figure out a way to get the boys actually _doing_ the hunting later. One step at a time.

She bent over the hidden pages and wrote down her instructions. She knew she would only get one shot at this.

_It's Hermione. Horcrux made me time travel, stuck in 1944. Go & talk to Xenophilius Lovegood. Ask him about Deathly Hallows. Need to know what they are._

Hermione paused. Her eyes swam with tears as she wrote,

_Ron, I forgive you for leaving. Thank you for coming back._

She swallowed the lump in her throat.

_Be careful. X_

Hermione double-checked her invisibility charms, and then snapped the book shut. She left the common room and went straight to bed. Hermione pulled up the covers and closed her eyes tightly, cradling the book close to her chest.

"Fall asleep," she murmured to herself. "Go on, fall asleep..."


	11. Hermione, Is That You?

_The outside of the tent swam into view, lit up by the morning sun. They still hadn't moved from the forest, clearly still waiting for her to reappear. Hermione's heart ached for them._

_Ron came out from amongst the trees, doing up his jeans_ _zipper as he stomped_ _across the frosty ground. "It's bloody freezing out here," he called to Harry as he entered the tent. Hermione followed him in. Clothes and bits of old food and half-read books littered the floor, the table, and the beds. A small wooden wireless was perched atop a few of the books and Celestina Warbeck's crooning voice was coming out of the speakers. Hermione followed Ron over towards Harry, who was trying to practice vanishing various items with_ _a new wand – she wondered where he had picked it up, since he had been borrowing hers, until she left._

_Not left, she thought._ _Before I was taken away. Before I was ripped from one reality and forced into another._

" _...that's three down, we're basically there!" Ron was saying. His chipper attitude_ _didn't seem to get through to Harry, whose expression was dark and clouded. An uneasy silence fell between them._

" _Tell you what," Ron announced_ _abruptly, clapping his hands together. "Let's plan out where we think the next horcruxes will be…"_

" _Don't you think I haven't already tried that?" Harry snapped. "Don't you think I haven't racked my damn brains every single day for months trying to figure out where they are, how we'd get to them, what we-"_

_A book fell to the floor in front of them. The Tales of Beedle the Bard._

_Hermione was sweating with the effort of trying to move the book. She had concentrated so hard on interacting with it that there were now stars swimming in her eyes. She tried to focus again. Just one more push._

_The pages of the book flapped to the front. The book lay open on a blank page._

_Harry and Ron huddled over it._

" _Ron, did you…?"_

_Ron shook his head, swallowing hard. "No."_

" _Then how did that book just move?"_

" _Harry…_ _"_

" _Yeah?"_

" _Wasn't that Hermione's book? The one she got from Dumbledore in his will?"_

_The boys carried on staring below them, neither daring to move. Tentatively, Harry reached out with his toe and gave the book a quick nudge. Nothing happened._

_From nearby, Hermione's nose was bleeding. She had her hands outstretched and was trying, and failing, to cast a wandless charm on the blank page. She needed them to find her hidden note. She ignored the blood as it dripped down, warm, onto her lips and into her mouth._

" _Please, please…" she begged. The magic wasn't coming out of her without her wand._

_Harry and Ron started backing away from the book, confused._

" _Maybe it was just the wind, again…" Harry said._

" _Yeah… Although I tell you what, mate. I've had this weird feeling lately, like we're being watched…"_

_One last push. Sparks jetted out of Hermione's palm, ripped through time, and hit the blank pages of paper. Ink appeared on the page, and with a gasp, the boys lunged forward to read it. Hermione, utterly spent, fell back, her chest heaving for breath, her pulse pounding in her ears._

" _Hermione!" Ron shouted. It was the last thing she heard as everything around her faded to black._


	12. The Devil Was In The Details

She was _doing_ something to him. He had never, ever, thought about the softness of a girl's mouth before, and yet here he was, lying awake at night, thinking about it. And a muggleborn's, for shame.

Tom rolled over. He was disgusted with himself. Hermione Granger had dark magic at her disposal, and she was using it on him.

 _To what end?_ He asked himself. _I've only just met the girl._

God, she smelled like honeysuckle when he leaned in close to her. And she fought like a damn tiger. He hadn't duelled like that in years. He had thought about it every day since then, had been tortured by it, for weeks – though it was nice to know he wasn't too much out of practice when it came to duelling. He only lifted his wand these days to punish those who crossed him, those of his followers who fell out of line. The only curses and jinxes he cast were on the disobedient rank and file. He certainly didn't get himself into an excited tizzy, throwing spells around the school with some other student. No matter how much fun it had been. How much it had lit a fire in his belly. He was above it. He was… _Lord Voldemort_.

Tom smiled at the name he had invented for himself. If the other Slytherin boys had shown him respect before, now they bowed and scraped at his very feet.

 _Would Hermione bow and scrape?_ He thought, his mind inevitably wandering back to her. She had come crashing into his life all mysterious brown eyes and brown curls. _No, she'd give me lip._ He wondered at her bravery and her ballsiness, and if she had been sorted into the right house.

The grandfather clock chimed dimly from the common room, marking it as 5am. Time for his morning exercises – he always liked to get them in before breakfast.

"Avery, Mulciber," he hissed as he got out of bed. "Get your robes on. Now."

The two boys, heads thick from sleep, slowly got up, dressed themselves as Riddle had done, and followed him out.

"What are we doing this mornin', d'you think?" One boy asked the other.

"No idea," yawned the other. "I hope we get to mess around with the first year Hufflepuffs again. Hanging them in the greenhouses by their hair was such a laugh."

Tom stayed silent as the two guffawed behind him. Let the boys have their fun – they served their purpose to him well enough. He led the way upstairs and out of the dungeons, checked the coast was clear, and then headed out across the lawns towards the lake. Another of his followers, Lestrange, was waiting for them. He was standing by the shore, rubbing his arms for warmth, a large potato sack at his feet. Every now and then the sack wriggled. As Tom and the other boys drew closer, a muffled "Let me out!" could be heard.

"Good morning, Lestrange," Tom greeted as they approached. He reached into the pocket of his robes and pulled out a pair of black leather gloves.

"Good morning, my Lord," nodded Lestrange. His smile never quite reached his eyes.

"What little present have you got for us this morning?" Tom asked as he slowly put on his gloves. The chill in the air made their breath mist up as they spoke.

"You'll like this one." He bent down and began to untie the sack, which kept wriggling in earnest.

"Stop." Tom's authoritative tone cut through the autumn air like ice. "Perhaps somewhere a little more private, for this one? We don't want anyone interrupting our target practice."

Behind him, Avery and Mulciber's eyes lit up.

Lestrange nodded. "Levicorpus," he muttered, lifting the sack into mid-air before them, and then trailing it along as the group headed into the outskirts of the forest. Once safely under the cover of the trees, he set the sack down. Tom stood in front of them all.

"There is a specific jinx I want you to practice today, gents," he said. He had always fancied himself a natural teacher, helping those below him learn the craft of magic. Perhaps one day he would apply for a job at Hogwarts, if the time was ever right.

"What jinx, my Lord?" Asked Avery, craning his neck to see who it was they'd be practising on.

A smile played on Tom's lips. "Oppugno," he said. "Make any conjured creature or object attack someone else."

The boys nodded and jeered their approval at this idea, and Lestrange untied the potato sack. A timid, terrified first-year girl was bound and gagged inside.

"I hope your memory charms are up to scratch, Lestrange," Tom warned, looking the girl over.

"Yes, my Lord. Of course, my Lord."

"Have at her, then." Tom waved a dismissive hand and settled back to watch the others jinx an array of pinecones, twigs and the odd squirrel to attack the young girl, who tried and failed several times to run away. It was ten minutes to 6 before Tom called it to a halt.

"Alright then, that's enough! Not the best display of the jinx I've encountered," Tom said, as he thought back to Hermione's use of the spell. "But not the worst, either. Tidy yourselves up and then go back to the school."

"That was a good session today, my Lord!" Avery panted, his cheeks reddened from all the activity. "When will we get to practice again?"

"No doubt we will have plenty of time during half-term."

Tom took a step towards the battered and bruised first-year girl. He looked down at her, cowering at his feet, begging him for mercy with her eyes. How much he'd _love_ to see Hermione doing that.

"Lestrange – I trust you will take care of this?"

"Every time, you know me."

Tom tore his eyes away from the girl, forgetting about her as soon as he looked up. He headed back to the school and settled himself at the breakfast table in the Great Hall. He poured himself a cup of coffee and, relaxed and composed, began to read that morning's edition of the Daily Prophet.

...

Hermione was getting used to his routine. He took his coffee black, first thing in the morning, in freshly pressed trousers and hair elegantly brushed back. It was 6am, and Hermione felt her stomach tie into a knot when she entered the Great Hall and saw him; he was pouring over a copy of the Daily Prophet in the early morning hush when she arrived.

He did not look up when she sat down beside him. He just nudged a second cup of coffee her way and flipped the newspaper to the back to read the latest Quidditch scores. Hermione drank down the caffeine gratefully, still half-asleep, and was extremely impressed that he had made it just the way she preferred: milky, with two heaped spoonfuls of sugar.

"How did you know how I take my coffee?" She asked.

"You seem like a milk and two sugars kind of girl, Granger." He continued studying the scores with nearly as much intent as Ron used to.

"Hmm. Well I have to say that _you_ don't seem like the Quidditch kind of boy, Riddle."

He sighed and put the paper down, looking up at her for the first time. "I'm not. But I like to read an entire newspaper. You don't leave a piece of homework half-finished just because you're disinterested in the topic, do you?"

Hermione nodded absently, unable to argue with that one, and looked around the Slytherin table for some breakfast. They had been continuing in this polite vein for some time now, all "how do you do's" and "yes I'm fine thank you's". It had been a pattern they had both fallen into since their fight, though the strain was starting to show.

"So," she said awkwardly, spooning some eggs and bacon onto her plate. "Have you been practising your lines?"

"Please don't remind me that we have to participate in that gruesome performance," Tom said, pulling a face. "This entire situation is..."

"Ridiculous? Demeaning? The worst punishment they could have given us?"

"You hit the nail on the head, Granger."

"Well, just get through it, and then by January we can go back to being mere acquaintances, passing each other innocently in the hallway."

"Wonderful." Tom's voice was cold, but his gaze was like a warm flame. He kept staring at her lips, and Hermione hated the thrill that ran through her.

"And I can go back to hating your guts," she said, with a little more bitterness than she had intended to reveal; she was tired. She was always tired. She crawled into bed each night, hoping the dreams would return, but they eluded her.

"Hate? What a strong word, considering we've known each other for… what is it now? Almost two months?"

"Is that all it is?" Hermione replied, glancing down at his Gaunt family ring. He twitched when he noticed her looking at it. "Feels like a lifetime," she murmured.

She couldn't stop looking at the ring. She knew what it meant – this boy in front of her had already severed his soul in two. As she thought this, the memory of a ghostly girl wailing in the second-floor bathroom came back to her.

 _Three_ , she thought. _He's severed his soul into three already._ She was abruptly put off her food.

"Why do you keep staring at my hand?" Tom asked her, startling her with his forwardness. Hermione glanced around – it was only the two of them, a few Ravenclaws and the odd teacher in the Hall.

"I don't keep staring," she muttered, her gaze falling back down to his hand. "But your ring…"

Tom leaned as far away from her as he could. "What about it?"

She wondered how he could go down a path so full of hatred and despair, when he had the whole world at his feet right now. She could see the intelligence in him: he could be anything he wanted, even Minister for Magic one day – but it was all marred by the darkness in him.

" _What about it_ , Granger?" Tom asked her, his face openly frightened.

Hermione was surprised by his honest fear. It wasn't an emotion she had imagined the boy version of Voldemort would possess. But then she thought... the man she knew of in the future – the monster – was desperate and at the end of his life, and clinging onto power by any means. This boy in front of her was young. Malleable. Though it may be damaged, he still had a soul in him. She all at once felt she knew him better, even if only by an inch. She now realised the delicate, _delicate_ potential there was in Tom, and that perhaps – by somebody's intervention – he could be saved.

"I..." She started. They were interrupted by several Slytherins joining their table for breakfast.

Their awkward dance of courtesy and politeness continued. Tom kept his hands resolutely in his pockets, before excusing himself from the table a little while later.

Potions class. Transfiguration class. Standing lonely in a cold courtyard, knuckles freezing in the wind. More classes. The days were endless, isolated, and Hermione ignored them. Her vision blurred. The only person in her year who spoke to her was _Tom bloody Riddle_. Hermione walked, legs like lead, back to the common room that evening, a book tucked under her arm: 'A Collection of Wizarding Conspiracies', by Renaltus Perfidy. She hoped it would glean some insight into these 'deathly hallows', since she was out of other options. Figuring out the puzzle was the only thing getting her through the days, since any information on time travel had dried up. Dumbledore refused to speak to her about anything other than the weather. He did try to pry, from time to time, by asking her questions about the future – and then it was _her_ turn to refuse to speak about anything other than the weather. She was going around in circles with everyone and everything.

The common room was busy when she arrived, with several students milling around the notice board. "I can't believe this," one of them muttered to another.

"Come off it, did you really think they'd let us go gallivanting about after the entrance hall was practically destroyed?"

"Don't be so overdramatic, Dawkins. A couple of windows were broken."

Hermione pushed her way through to the front of the crowd to see what the fussing was about. A pinned notice read:

**ATTENTION ALL STUDENTS**

**DUE TO RECENT EVENTS AND CONCERNS FROM STAFF OVER STUDENT SAFETY, HOGSMEADE VISITS WILL BE POSTPONED DURING THE HALF-TERM PERIOD.**

**THERE WILL BE NO EXCEPTIONS. PLEASE STAY INSIDE THE SCHOOL GROUNDS.**

**PLEASE SPEAK TO YOUR HOUSE PREFECTS IF YOU HAVE ANY QUERIES**

**(N.B. THIS DOES NOT AFFECT QUIDDITCH MATCHES. GAMES CAN CONTINUE AS NORMAL)**

"Can you blame them, after everything that happened last year? Best to play it safe and keep the school govenors happy."

"I don't give a tosh about the ruddy school govenors. I was looking forward to a butterbeer down at the Three Broomsticks."

Hermione turned to one of her fellow Slytherins. "Are the teachers worried that the ghasts will make another appearance?" She asked. The student she spoke to gave her a frown and walked off, muttering something about 'insolent mudbloods'. Frustrated, she tried another student, tapping a girl nearby on the shoulder. When the girl turned around, Hermione's stomach sank. Rhonda.

"Something I can help with, freak?"

Hermione gritted her teeth and pointed at the notice board. "Do you know what's going on?"

"Muggle mummy and daddy not teach you how to read, freak?"

"Look, if you've got nothing useful to say, don't bother-"

"Oh, please," Rhonda tutted, rolling her eyes. "Clearly the teachers are being cautious. We had a lot of trouble happen last year. There was dark magic being performed in some chamber under the school. A girl died."

"I heard about that," Hermione said. She played with the chain of her necklace, which Dumbledore had promised would protect her, provided she remain on the school grounds. Was he worried it would stop working?

"Well, _obviously_ the teachers are concerned about it happening again," Rhonda continued. "That was quite a to-do at the start of term feast. The perpetrator was caught last year, you know... some third year half-blood boy... My mother thinks it's revolting that they let anyone join this school nowadays. She says it's going to the dogs..." Rhonda sniffed, then looked down her nose at Hermione. "Speaking of," she spat, flouncing away, all pleated skirt and bouncy blonde ringlets.

Hermione settled herself into an armchair by the fireplace. She opened the book she had borrowed from the library but couldn't focus past chapter two. The crackling fire in the grate grew louder and louder as she grew sleepier and sleepier. She really _was_ tired. She thought back to Ron and Harry, in the tent, reading her note. She hoped they had seen it. Biting her lip, Hermione worried if she had overexerted herself. She hadn't had a single dream of the future since that night. She felt as though she was in sinking sand – the more she tried to struggle, the more she was sinking, getting herself stuck in this world.

It all swam around her now as she began to doze: travelling in time, falling through an endless fog; a familiar symbol, leering at her from her subconscious; reaching with outstretched fingers towards her boys, her two boys, her best friends; Dumbledore, running down a dark hallway, slamming a door in her face; Tom Riddle, smiling at her knowingly, wearing a large gold ring and writing in an old, burnt diary.

The devil was in the details, and it was the details she couldn't get a hold of.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading the WIP so far! I will be updating very shortly.


	13. A Friend In Need Is A Friend Indeed

_Somebody was laughing at her. No, worse – somebody, from far away in the deep, black dark – was giggling._

_A mad, inconceivable glee. It made Hermione want to retch._

" _Hermione Graaaaangerrrrr," sang the giggling voice. Hermione felt the goosebumps ripple up her arms at the sound._

" _Hello?" She called, into the dark._ _Nothing_ _called_ _back._

" _Hello?" She tried again._

_Suddenly, a girl appeared next to her in the gloom. The girl wore oversized, tatty school robes with the house emblem scratched out._

" _Hi there," the girl_ _smiled_ _, showing a set of protr_ _uding, oversized teeth._

" _Who…_ _Who are you?" Asked Hermione._

" _I'm a friend," the girl replied, her smile not moving an inch. "_ _I'm a Spirit of Guidance. You need a little bit of that, don't you?"_

" _I suppose so…" Hermione watched the spirit-_ _girl_ _carefully, a gnawing feeling of doubt growing in her chest._

" _Yes, yes you do! What a hard time it has been for you!"_ _The spirit-girl skipped around Hermione, round and round in circles, so that it made Hermione's neck ache to keep looking at her. Abruptly, the spirit stopped. She leaned in close to Hermione's ear._

" _But why has it been so hard? Aren't you supposed to be the 'brightest witch of your age',_ _and all that_ _?"_

" _Excuse me?"_

" _If you claim to be such a clever little witch-"_

" _I've never said-"_

" _If you claim to be such a clever little witch," the spirit continued,_ _her_ _voice growing louder. She resumed her skipping around Hermione. "Why can't you figure your way out of this one? Why can't you get yourself home?"_

" _Stop it," Hermione snapped. She shoved roughly past the spirit and tried to walk away. There was nothing but dark fog around her, but_ _she_ _walked off anyway. T_ _he spirit giggled, keeping up with Hermione's stride easily._

" _Where are you going, silly? Nowhere fast, it seems!"_

_Hermione stopped, sighing in defeat. "Do you have anything useful to say?_ _Any – I don't know – 'guidance', maybe?_ _" She asked._

_The spirit-girl crept in close again._ _Hermione_ _could hear the girl's ragged breathing, and the repulsive smell of sulphur. Hermione wrinkled her nose but refused to move. The spirit stepped back in front of Hermione_ _,_ _waggling her eyebrows_ _knowingly_ _._

" _I know what you really want, Hermione Granger,"_ _she said in a stage-whisper. "I can see into your head. I know w_ _hat you really, really, really want…_ _But does he want you back?"_

" _Go. Away." Hermione growl_ _ed it out through gritted teeth._

_T_ _he spirit screeched a laugh, clapping her hands together._ _She started doing cartwheels all around in the mist, singing a tune as she went. It brought bile up to Hermione's mouth._

" _Hermione and Tom, sitting in a tree! K-I-S-S-I-N-G…"_

" _Stop saying that_ _!" Hermione yelled,_ _her hand itching for her wand._ _"You_ _don't know what you're talking about!"_

_T_ _he spirit-girl collapsed onto the floor, clutching her_ _stomach_ _from all the giggling._

_I_ _n an instant, the giggling stopped. The girl disappeared._

" _Your friends would be so disappointed in you," rang out a_ _booming_ _voice. "Harry would be sickened… And Ron… And Ginny… And all the other Weasleys..."_

_At the mention of their name,_ _the dark fog_ _faded away._

 _Mrs Weasley_ _materialised_ _in front of her_ _out of the gloom_ _,_ _a_ _nd_ _Hermione found herself_ _back_ _at_ _the Burrow._ _Or a version of it at least – everything looked slightly off,_ _as if all the colours were_ _slightly too bright._ _Christmas music was playing, tinkling away from the lounge, a_ _nd Hermione_ _was_ _stood at the kitchen sink;_ _she_ _looked down and saw that she was in the middle of peeling potatoes_ _for dinner_ _._

" _..._ _I c_ _an't believe_ _that_ _you would be so selfish," Mrs Weasley was saying,_ _pointing a_ _finger in Hermione's direction. "_ _Leaving Ron, and poor dear Harry, all alone in the woods like that. How could you? You've always been a nasty, selfish, arrogant young girl…"_

_H_ _ermione put down the potato peeler, tears forming in her eyes at the harsh words. "Mrs Weasley, why are you saying all this? I didn't mean to leave them there!"_

" _Maybe you don't WANT to go home! Maybe you like it where you are, maybe you like the way he looks at you! I've never met a girl more selfish..." Mrs Weasley kept shouting._

" _Please, don't say that," Hermione cried._

_As her tears hit the floor, the images in front of her changed._

_Hermione looked around, confused. She found herself in the defence-against-the-dark-arts classroom,_ _the summer sun blazing its heat through the window. She was_ _sitting at a desk,_ _quill in hand,_ _with Professor Lupin leaning over her._

" _Are you having trouble with your test, Hermione?" He asked._

" _No, Sir…" Hermione wiped her tears away on the back of her sleeve._

" _Good. I expect a lot from you, you know, Hermione." Lupin loomed right over her, his shadow casting itself over her test paper. "I've heard a lot about your magical abilities. But can you prove yourself when it really matters?"_

" _I… I hope so, Sir…"_

" _I don't think you can._ _I think you've been lying to us all this entire time, and that you can't do anything. You're only a muggle-born, after all. How could you really hope to figure this all out?" Lupin leaned his head to the side in mock-sympathy._ _Hermione felt_ _a prickling of defiance at his derisive_ _tone._

" _You can't even work out how to time-travel! How stupid are you, really?"_

" _I'm not stupid!" Hermione flared, throwing her papers and quill at the teacher. It went right through him, as if he were only mist._

_The classroom disappeared. The images around her changed again._

_Hermione found herself in the_ _second_ _-floor girl's bathroom. Moaning Myrtle and the_ _S_ _pirit of_ _G_ _uidance were sitting cross-legged on the floor, plaiting each other's hair and singing a Muggle nursery rhyme._

" _Little Bo-peep has lost her sheep, and can't tell where to find them…"_

_Hermione took a step further into the room._ _Her reflection in the mirror caught her eye – she looked pale, and worn out._

" _..._ _L_ _eave them alone, and they'll come home, and bring their tails behind them…"_

" _Why aren't you helping me?" Hermione asked,_ _walking over to the girls and staring down at them._

" _...Little Bo-peep fell fast asleep, and dreamt she heard them bleating…"_

" _You say you're a spirit of guidance, but you aren't guiding me anywhere! How do I get home?"_

_The girls just kept singing, their voices echoing off the walls around them. "...But when she awoke, she found it a joke, for they were still a-fleeting…"_

_Frustrated, Hermione turned her back on them._

_There was blood on the mirror._ _Someone had used it to write the word "TRAITOR" over and over, covering the entire surface so that her reflection was completely obscured._

_Hermione could feel herself starting to hyperventilate, the_ _air_ _coming hard and thick to her chest;_ _she couldn't get enough of it._ _The walls were closing in._

_Without a second thought she ran from the bathroom._ _She kicked open the door and hurled herself out into the corridor. A_ _t the crash of her escape, the singing had stopped. As Hermione sprinted as fast as she could down the hallway, the spirit scream_ _ing_ _behind her:_

" _We all know what you are, Hermione! We all know what you really are!"_

_Hermione didn't stop running until she woke up._


	14. Secret Shenanigans

The cold shot itself through Dumbledore, and he gathered his cloak tighter around himself. The nights were drawing in with shocking speed, and as he continued down the dark side street, he had to pay attention lest he lose his footing on the cobbles. At last he came to the address he had been looking for: a small muggle restaurant, where the windows were steamed and glowing with flickering candlelight, and every time the door opened and closed the distant sound of chatter and sweet mandolin music could be heard. He entered hurriedly, eager for a shandy and somewhere to sit down.

It didn’t take long, once he’d stepped inside, to find his fellow associates that he had come to meet. They were huddled in a group at the bar. “Gentlemen,” he greeted, holding out a long-fingered hand to shake each of theirs in turn. “Armando. Elphias, my dear. Anthony. Cedric. Ah, I’m glad you could make it in the end, Edward.” The group of men sat themselves around a table in the corner, ordered their drinks, and started their pleasant conversation.

Once the niceties were over and a drink or two warmed their insides, Dumbledore turned the group’s attention to the issue at hand. “Gentlemen, I am very glad you have joined me here this evening…” He raised his half-empty glass in toast, and nodded around the table. “For we gather in such troubled times, to discuss a very troubled wizard.”

The other men fell to hush around Dumbledore, holding their breath in anticipation.

“I speak, of course, of one Gellert Grindelwald.” A collective breath was let out.

“Are we close to catching him, Albus?” Asked Armando Dippet.

Dumbledore shook his head gravely.

“I’ve heard from several of my sources that he might attack the Ministry in London, soon-” piped up Cedric O’Batten, the current Head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement. He was a very elderly wizard with a very large nose, which hung so far over his whisky glass that he couldn’t see much of it.

“No, he wouldn’t be so foolish as to attack London directly,” interrupted Elphias Doge, before Dumbledore could reply. “He knows far too well that there are wizards here who would not only oppose him, but who are capable of actually defeating him.”

The other men murmured their agreement, all looking pointedly at Dumbledore. He sighed. Deeply.

“If he does come this far north and attack the Ministry, then I will have no choice but to face him in a direct duel. But if that can be avoided, if we can get him to surrender peacefully…”

A couple of the men grunted their disbelief.

“That won’t happen.”

“Not a chance.”

“He’s not going to give up his power all that easily, Albus.”

Dumbledore nodded, admitting it to himself more than anything. “No, Gellert won’t give himself up. That’s why I’m suggesting here tonight that we take the fight to him. Some old friends of mine in Europe say that he is moving West, towards Paris, and the he intends to infiltrate the-”

Their conversation was interrupted by the Minister for Magic, Leonard Spencer-Moon, who barged through the restaurant door, marched over to their table and slammed a fist down upon it.

“I knew it! I knew you lot were meeting in secret – behind my back!”

The men were silent, each of them looking dumbly back at the Minister. He continued in his blustering tirade.

“...And when you blew me off last week, Dumbledore, I _knew_ something was going on! ‘Don’t have a clue what the enemy is doing’, my fig! You know exactly what is going with the French and Belgian governments, you just didn’t want to tell me… Well look who got the last laugh… I caught you red-handed, having secret shenanigans with some of my most important members of staff!”

Anthony, Cedric and Edward all slid a little lower in their seats.

Dumbledore just smiled back serenely. “And how, exactly, did you ‘catch’ us here? You’re not spying on us, are you Leonard?” Enquired Dumbledore, crossing him arms tightly and leaning back against his chair. Elphias Doge snorted loudly next to him.

“I should hope not! We have a right to meet up anywhere we choose, to discuss anything we choose!” Elphias was ready to stand up and start swinging, but his outrage abated when Dumbledore laid a gentle hand on his arm.

“Calm down, Elphias. I’m sure the Minister has a reasonable explanation.”

Mr Spencer-Moon looked like he didn’t have a reasonable explanation at all. His thick moustache twitched in discomfort, and he stumbled over his words.

“I… Well… You see, my men and I…”

“Why don’t you sit down, Leonard? Join us for a drink. You could probably stand to hear our conversation, in all honesty.” Dumbledore held his arms out in welcome, gesturing for the Minister to take a seat at their table. After a brief pause, the Minister sat with them, teetering on the edge of his chair awkwardly. The other men around him shuffled and pursed their lips, but none of them argued with Dumbledore.

“As I was saying… It looks as though Gellert is about to make his move on Paris. I don’t know what exactly his end-game is, but he moves his pawns towards the French Magical Embassy. They have been stationed there but haven’t done anything for weeks now. I do not know if they will be putting a plan into action any time soon.”

“Why the French Embassy?” Grumbled the Minister. “What would he gain, apart from a few poncy diplomats and ambassadors?”

“Why the embassy, I do not know. It’s been empty for a while due to all of the Muggle fighting occurring at the moment. As for France itself – France is the final frontier before reaching Britain,” Dumbledore explained. “If he gained power in France, he would be another step closer to having us cornered.”

Dumbledore leaned forward, pulling out a quill, some paper, and a pot of ink.

“Gentlemen, these are the final hours. I say that we make a plan to intercept Gellert, and bring this war to an end.”

  
  


The evening wore on into night, with many more drinks drunk, much more pipe tobacco smoked,and the final details bickered over incessantly. By the time the Minister and most of the group had retired and headed back to their homes, Dumbledore felt a lot older. He screwed up his face and rubbed his eyes, the fatigue of the day getting to his bones. It really would not be long now; he would soon have to face his old friend, and find out what happened to his sister Ariana once and for all. The reckoning was upon him.

“Will you join Armando and I for a night-cap, Albus?” Elphias’ hand clasped his shoulder, which Dumbledore patted gratefully.

“Does Jeffrey mind?”

“No – he said he will leave the place open for us, as long as we lock up afterwards. He’s used to our late night conversations by now. And he doesn’t ask many questions, for a muggle.”

Dippet, Dumbledore and Doge contented themselves with one more shandy each and settled onto the rickety stools further up by the bar. The tallow in the candles had burned low by now, and the room around them was quiet and dark.

“So, I wanted to ask you,” began Dippet. “Have you found out any more about the Granger girl? Has she revealed any further information to you?”

Dumbledore sucked at his teeth, frustrated. “No, not a dicky-bird. She’s been nothing but… normal, actually. Which either makes her a most _extraordinary_ liar, or someone that I completely misread.”

“I still don’t buy into her entire “time travel” story, myself,” said Elphias. “I mean, what is her goal in all this? Simply to get home? It sounds unlikely.”

Dippet nodded beside him. “I agree. As if you’d seek out your school professor if you were sent back in time 50 years. And those ghasts? That’s dark, dark magic.”

“Then perhaps we should amp up our watch on the castle, and any correspondence going in or out. Would that be something you can arrange, Armando?” Dumbledore asked.

“Of course. We can discreetly open and reseal student mail. We’ll ferret out who she’s in contact with.”

The three men fell silent for a while, staring into the bottoms of their empty glasses.

“Did she say how she did it, Albus?” Elphias asked quietly. “How she pulled off the time travel?”

“I haven’t a clue how she travelled so far into the past,” admitted Dumbledore. “But, if she is innocent, that makes this situation much worse for her. Because I have no idea how to send her back.”

  
  


… … …

  
  


It was slap-bang in the middle of half-term, and Hermione was having trouble avoiding people. She had become a hermit, a nocturnal one, sneaking out of the castle as soon as night fell. _Get yourself some fresh air_ , she told herself. _That’s all you need. Then you’ll feel better._

The school grounds lay pale and still in the moonlight that bathed them. She could hear her own footsteps as she ambled aimlessly over the lawns; the soft crunch on the frosty grass comforted her, and reminded her that she was alone again. She breathed a sigh of relief.

She had been jumpy for days since the dream. The reverberating memory of the spirit-girl singing nursery rhymes sent a shiver down her spine. Hermione looked around glumly – where once she had walked these grounds with confidence, and certainty, now she was afraid of her own shadow. She jumped every time she heard Tom’s name being called out in the Slytherin common room. Which was often – he was a popular head boy. He may have friendly handshakes humble smiles for all the other students, but for her… He still had that look about him when he turned his head her way. Hungry. Deeply curious. Approving.

Hermione couldn’t care less about the other Slytherins. They ignored her, and she them; as far as herpeers were concerned, she was a mistake, sorted into the wrong house and there was nothing they could do about it. They had their friendship groups, and weren’t about to make room for any extras.

Hermione noticed that her directionless walking had taken her a little too close to the forbidden forest. She stared into its depths, hands deep in the pockets of her robes. The trees were completely unfathomable from the darkness of the night. She lifted a hand and fiddled with the protection necklace around her neck idly… She wondered what would happen if she tore it off now and disappeared into the forest. How long would it take for Dumbledore to search for her? Would he search at all? He had felt like no ally, recently…

Hermione was desperate for something to happen. For _anything_ to happen. All this sitting around and playing the good girl was driving her up the wall. But that was what she was, wasn’t it? The good girl. With a sigh, Hermione turned and headed back towards the castle.

The toasty entrance hall was like a warm balm on Hermione’s skin, and she rubbed her palms together gratefully when she walked back inside. She was halfway down towards the dungeons when a familiar poltergeist poked his head out from inside a suit of armour.

“Coo-ee!” Called Peeves, making Hermione nearly jump out of her skin. She stumbled back a step, throwing a hand out before she lost her balance.

“Peeves! Don’t jump out like that!”

“Ohhhh, know my name, do you? But of course you do,” said Peeves, coming out of the suitentirely and bobbing along in the air in front of Hermione. “You know lots, don’t you? Professor Dumbledore warned me to keep my mouth shut whenever you were around.” He cackled out a laugh. Hermione glared up at him.

“You’d better listen to him then, hadn’t you?”

Peeves made a show of crossing his heart and zipping his mouth closed, the snide grin never leaving his face. “Of course, Peeves always listens to Professors!”

“Good. Great. I’m going back to bed now.” Hermione carried on down the stairs, but Peeves hadn’t had the last word. He bobbed along next to her.

“I don’t really care about what you _living_ lot get up to, anyway,” Peeves continued. “You’re all too boring for good old Peevesy.”

Hermione tried to ignore him. He kept talking.

“You should watch yourself, little muggle-born. Someone else around here certainly is.”

Hermione stopped dead in her tracks, foot hovering above the final step of the staircase. “What do you mean?” She asked. Peeves floated right in front of her face, and then without warning, blew a massive raspberry.

“Oh, for goodness’ sake!”

Peeves whizzed off and away up the stairs, shrieking with laughter as he went. Hermione grumbled to herself until he was gone. She turned and headed down the corridor. She resolved to speak to Dumbledore first thing in the morning. She was tired of nothing happening; she needed a plan, and she needed to put it into action.

Too late, Hermione heard the rustle of someone moving behind her. With a large _thunk_ something hit the back of her head. She was knocked out cold. 


	15. A Stronger Foothold

Hermione knew she was dreaming from the fuzzy feeling behind her eyes. But it was  _different_ this time. 

She looked around her – she seemed to be in somebody’s garden. It was windy, and cold... She held her hand out to feel it... Yes! She actually felt cold! She marvelled at the goosebumps riding up on her skin. 

“Hermione?” 

She whipped her head round. “ _Ron?_ ”

“How are you... What is... You’re here!” The tall ginger was smiling widely, ear to ear, his eyes alight at the sight of her. A ruffle of fabric and suddenly Harry appeared from under the invisibility cloak too. His greeting smile was almost as wide as Ron’s.

“Harry!” She exclaimed. 

“Have you been haunting us, by any chance?” Harry asked as he stowed the cloak away in his bag. “What was that, some sort of charm gone wrong, or-?” 

Hermione stayed quiet. Both the boys stared at her, their smiles faltering. 

“No, it wasn’t a charm. And I don’t think I’m really here. I, um...” Hermione sucked in a breath and tucked her hair behind her ears. “When I destroyed the horcrux – you know, the locket – something went wrong with time. I’ve been stuck in the 1940’s for a while now.” 

At once, both Harry and Ron started bombarding her with questions. She held up a hand to silence them. 

“There’s no time to explain, and I don’t think I could anyway. But don’t worry about me, I’m safe at Hogwarts and I have Professor Dumbledore helping me to get back home.”

“Dumbledore?” Harry asked. His expression clouded over, his recent grief still haunting him. Hermione reached out to hold his hand, but thought better of it. 

“Yes. I don’t think he trusts me yet, but I’m working on it.” She smiled ruefully at them both. Tears sprang up in her eyes. “I’ve been trying to get through to you both for _ages_. You couldn’t see me or hear me. I wrote you a note in one of my books, but I wasn’t sure if it got through to you... The whole ordeal has been awful. It was like being stuck in a nightmare and I couldn’t wake up.”

An uncomfortable silence fell between the three of them. After a minute, Hermione wiped her eyes roughly on the back of her sleeve. She was glad to be here with them, for the time being at least. 

“We got your note though,” Ron said quietly. “We got the message about coming here to see Xenophilius Lovegood. We weren’t sure whether it was real or not at first...” Ron scowled at Harry, who just shook his head. 

“It was a weird message,” Harry sighed. “How were we to know it wasn’t some deatheater trap?” 

“What do you mean ‘weird’?” Hermione asked. 

“It came through all jumbled up. Took us three days to work out just some of it – the part about coming here.”

“So you didn’t read anything else? About the horcrux sending me away, or...” Hermione bit her lip, looking up at Ron. 

“Nah,” he smiled down at her. “It was utter gibberish. So what are we here for, then?” 

“Oh! Right!” Hermione smacked herself in the forehead. “So back in time – you know, the 1940’s – Dumbledore mentioned something about this symbol that I keep thinking about. It’s a triangle, with a circle, and a line through it... If I had my copy of The Tales of Beedle the Bard, I’d show you. But anyway, Dumbledore said it was called the Deathly Hallows.”

“Great name,” nodded Ron. “Cheerful.” 

“Yes. So. I was reminded of a time when Victor Krum told me about these Hallows, how they were evil and all that. It all seemed quite irrelevant except that I saw the symbol again, back in Godric’s Hollow...”

“Really?” Asked Ron, frowning at her. “Where?” 

“On a gravestone, when we were in the churchyard looking for my parents,” Harry explained. His expression was still tight, like he was in pain.

“But Harry, I’d seen it somewhere else, too,” Hermione cut in. “It took me a few days but I remembered – Luna’s dad had been wearing the symbol on a chain around his neck the night of Bill and Fleur’s wedding reception. Mr Lovegood must know about this mark, and the meaning behind it.”

“So that explains the strange time-travel note that we got from you, leading us here. What we didn’t realise was that you’d be here too, as a welcoming party,” Ron laughed. Hermione couldn’t help but feel a warm sense of homecoming at his words. 

“I guess...” She started. “I guess that something gave me a stronger foothold here this time around...” 

Out of nowhere, Ron lunged forward and punched his hand –  _through_ her. She didn’t feel a thing. 

“Eurgh,” he complained, pulling his hand back as if it had been burned. “When I touch you, you go all see-through and stuff.”

“And punch-through, apparently,” frowned Hermione. “What was that for?” 

He shrugged. “Just checking.” 

“Yes, well...It’s really nice to see you and all, Hermione,” Harry interrupted. “But we’re standing in the middle of Xenophilius Lovegood’s dirigible plums.”

Hermione looked around and saw the plums growing in strange, quivering bushes all around them. They were ankle-deep in the carefully tilled soil, and a few of the fruits looked a little squashed from their trampling. 

“Oh. That can’t be good.” 

Ron grinned at her. “Not for plum growth, no.” They picked their way out of the mud and headed towards the front door. Harry knocked on it, and they waited. 

It wasn’t long before Xenophilius answered – Hermione let out a small, shocked gasp at his appearance. He was unkempt and wild; his hair was ratty, his shirt stained and he had the crazed look in his eye of a man about to unravel. 

“What? What is it?” He shrieked, and Hermione noticed the tremor of fear behind his voice. Then he looked the three of them over properly, his gaze coming last to rest on Harry, and recognition hit him. His mouth fell open. 

“Hello, Mr Lovegood,” said Harry, without a moment’s hesitation. He held his hand out in a gesture of friendship. “I’m Harry, Harry Potter.”

_Good,_ Hermione thought to herself.  _He’ll let us in if he knows it’s Harry in particular who’s come to see him._ She glanced over at Ron, who was nodding to himself behind Harry’s left shoulder. He approved of the name-drop as well.

“Would it be okay if we came in?” Harry continued, still smiling and polite. Xenophilius was mumbling to himself, looking around the garden furtively, as if waiting for something – or someone – to swoop down upon them. “It won’t take long,” Harry pressed. The mumbling stopped. 

“I – oh, alright then. Come in quickly.” They stepped past Xenophilius’ outstretched arm and over the threshold. “ _Quickly_!” He hissed, making Hermione jump forward as fast as she could into the house. The door slammed shut behind her. 

Now in Mr Lovegood’s kitchen, Hermione threw Ron a confused look. He just shrugged at her and they both turned their attention back to Harry, who was watching their reluctant host carefully. 

“You’d better come up,” Xenophilius said through clenched teeth, and led them up the spiral staircase to a living room-come-office, which was covered floor to ceiling in a variety of jumbled objects, scraps of paper and bizarre DIY art sculptures. It took a moment of two before one object in particular caught Hermione’s eye, and she couldn’t help herself from crying out in surprise. 

“Mr Lovegood!” She squeaked, staring wide-eyed at a large grey horn mounted in prime position on the far wall. “What is that?” 

Xenophilius turned to see what she was looking at. “It is the horn of a Crumple-Horned Snorkack,” he replied. 

“No, it isn’t!” Hermione couldn’t believe what this man had hanging in his house. Harry strode over to her and grabbed her by the forearm. 

“Hermione,” he muttered. “Now’s not the moment-” 

“But _Harry_ ,” Hermione said, pulling her arm out of his grasp. “It’s an Erumpent horn!” She paused, waiting for her words to sink in. Harry just blinked back at her, confused. 

Hermione sighed in exasperation. “It’s a Class B tradeable material, and it’s an extraordinarily dangerous thing to have in the house, let alone-” 

“How d’you know it’s an Erumpent horn?” Ron asked, hastily taking a step back from it. 

“There’s a description in ‘Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them’,” she explained. “Mr Lovegood, you need to get rid of it straight away. Don’t you know it can explode at the slightest touch?”

Hermione dreaded to think what would happen if she died – or even got injured – here. Would she simply wake up back in the 40’s? Did it even work that way? Which was the real world and which wasn’t?

“The Crumple. Horned. _Snorrrkack_ ,” Xenophilius enunciated clearly, as Hermione rolled her eyes, “is a shy and highly magical creature, and its horn-” 

Hermione squared her shoulders and threw her hair back. “Mr Lovegood.” 

Behind her, Harry started to make a shushing noise but she ignored him. “Mr Lovegood, I recognise the grooved markings around the base.  _That_ ,” she pointed straight at the horn, “is an Erumpent horn, and it’s incredibly dangerous. I don’t know where you got it, but-”

“I bought it!” Xenophilius answered, the volume of his voice raising a fraction above Hermione’s. “Two weeks ago, from a delightful young wizard who knew of my interest in the exquisite Snorkack. A Christmas surprise for my Luna.” With that, he pushed past Hermione and spoke directly to Harry. She ground her teeth at being ignored, but one thing troubled her – speaking of Luna, where was she? 

“Why exactly have you come here, Mr Potter?” 

Harry gladly took the opportunity to change the subject from the Erumpent horn, and started to explain that they came to ask for some help. Xenophilius seemed very reluctant, sweating nervously and giving any excuse not to. Hermione tilted her head, wondering at his reaction. 

“Where’s Luna?” She asked. “Let’s see what she thinks.” The remark only made the older man sweat more. 

“She... Luna is downstream, fishing for Freshwater Plimpies... I’ll go and call her and then – yes, very well. I shall try to help you.” He scurried away, not meeting anyone else’s eye, and disappeared out the front door. It left Hermione with a bad feeling, and the fine hairs on her arms stood on end. 

Harry and Ron started chatting, before Harry wandered over to the window to stare out over the moors. Hermione took the chance to speak with Ron. 

“How’ve you both been?” She asked. 

“Fine. You know.” When Ron smiled, this time it didn’t quite reach his eyes. “So stuck in the past, eh? I should be asking how _you’ve_ been.”

Hermione shrugged. “Fine. You know.”

“How long before you can get home? Properly, I mean?”

“Ron, I really don’t know. It’s so weird back there. Nobody trusts me. Did you know I was sorted into Slytherin?” 

“What?” Ron’s face was full of disgust. “Why?” 

“I don’t know, the Sorting hat put me there. But they all hate me.” Hermione suddenly thought of Tom. His face swam into her mind: his dark eyes, looking at her in a way nobody else ever had. “With one glaring exception.”

“Yeah?”

“I don’t know how to explain it to you in a way you’ll understand,” she said, biting her lip. Like her, neither Harry not Ron had made the 1940’s Hogwarts / Tom Riddle connection. A part of her was relieved. The other part of her was unsettled at keeping Tom a secret. A dirty secret. 

Ron reached out to touch Hermione. Again, his hand went right through her, and the contact made her entire body shimmer and turn translucent. Ron shook his head. 

“Sorry. Forgot about the whole ‘not really here’ thing.”

“It’s fine,” replied Hermione, shifting her weight away from Ron. She knew he had wanted to be more than friends – for a while now – but she had never gotten around to explaining that she didn’t see him that way. It never seemed to be the right time for it. “I’m surprised I’m still here, actually,” she said. “Normally I only get to stick around for a few minutes before I wake up and I’m back in my bed in the dormitory.”

“The _Slytherin_ dormitory.” Ron wrinkled his nose, and Hermione laughed.

“Hey, come look at this,” called Harry from across the room. He was peering closely at a bust of Rowena Ravenclaw. Perched on top of her head was the strangest tiara Hermione had ever seen. At least, Hermione _thought_ it was meant to be a tiara – it was yet another example of the strange DIY art that the Lovegoods seemed so fond of.

At that moment, Xenophilius returned, tea tray in hand, and they all settled themselves where they could around the haphazard room. 

“Now,” the older man began, crossing his legs over one another. “How may I help you, Mr Potter?”

Harry glanced up at Hermione. She nodded at him encouragingly. 

“It’s about that symbol you were wearing around your neck at Bill and Fleur’s wedding, Mr Lovegood. We wondered what it meant.” 

Xenophilius’ eyebrows shot up in surprise. Whatever he had been expecting, it wasn’t this. “Are you referring to the sign of the Deathly Hallows?”

Hermione settled herself back in her armchair, knowing that she was  _finally_ about to get some answers.

  
  


****


End file.
